Music Download Kiosks

Would you queue in a train station to download music?

Londonist thinks it's hard enough to queue in a train station to get train tickets, so we doubt we'd have the patience or the time to use one of the new 'music download kiosks' which are set to appear in Waterloo and King's Cross next month.

The kiosks are manufactured by a company called Inspired Network Broadcasting and apparently hold "a 2 million track database" which includes tracks from "Indie to Dance, from Pop to Gold, from the very latest Pre-releases, to the big swing tunes of the 40's".

Oooh, swing!

Here's the concept as explained by the company's chief executive: "All you need is a mobile phone or an MP3 player and a coin in your pocket. You select the track you want and, depending on what type of device you have, it will either download using a wireless connection, or you can plug it in directly."

Londonist can see some problems with this right away:

- Downloading music is about convenience. Standing in the middle of Kings Cross fiddling with your mobile phone having to choose one particular song is not convenient,

- Using one of these machines will have the same effect as standing in the middle of the station shouting "Hey I've got a fancy mobile phone/MP3 player why not come and steal it from me".

- Other people will be able to see what kind of music you want to listen to. Strangers will laugh at you because you fancy a bit of McFly today.

- It doesn't support iPods.

The next entertainment/public transport innovation better be games consoles on tube trains or we're going to get annoyed.