CDNOW

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CDNOW.com was an online retailer, founded in February 1994 by twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania. CDNOW was initially launched as a telnet (text-only) service in August 1994, and then as a website in September 1994. The operation was started in their parents' basement, using Valley Records Distributors as a drop-ship fulfillment center. With three employees, the company moved its headquarters a few miles down the road to a train station in Pennlyn, Pennsylvania, which it outgrew when it reached 55 employees. It then moved to the old Strawbridge's building in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, where it went public with in February 1998, with 110 employees and annual (1997) revenues of around $18MM. Finally, the company moved to Fort Washington. In 2000, CDNOW was bought by Bertelsmann. CDNOW had a unique internal music rating and recommendation service, which offered recommendations to customers. This feature, now indispensable with Internet retailers, was also often used by those who had never actually purchased a product on the site.

CDNOW was one of the 1990s' most notorious websites, first to own the largest amount of albums in quantity and variety available on the Internet, and second, to sample the most popular music in RealAudio format. The first samples were uploaded near the end of 1995, bringing the site the definitive Bookmark status on publications and web guides in those years.

In late 2002 Amazon.com began operating the CDNOW web site, a move that gave little warning to CDNOW customers. Although the CDNOW brand is still visible by accessing the web site at www.cdnow.com, it immediately redirects to www.amazon.com. Amazon discontinued CDNOW's music profiling section, although it now offers a similar service. Rateyourmusic.com was indirectly created as a response to the loss of CDNOW's recommendation service.