Samsung launched the Magna Carta Holy Grail app back in late-June with the promise that users would be able to download the complete Jay-Z album a few days ahead of the general release. Samsung had the app available for those Galaxy S III, Galaxy S 4 and the Galaxy Note II. The free album offer would be available for the first million people that installed the app.
The catch with that, the actual downloading of the album was not all that smooth when it came available. Once the midnight release time arrived social sites began filling with complaints from users. We didn’t stay up till midnight to try to get the download, but we experienced app crashes and slow downloads the following morning. In fact, it took about an hour to actually complete the album download.
That aside, the release of this album was a deal that Jay-Z did with Samsung. While Jay-Z received the extra promotion, Samsung also got to be included in this high-profile album release. Samsung also paid a rate of $5 per album, which when doing the math — means a $5 million payday for Jay-Z. If nothing else, this certainly was an interesting approach for an album release.
The problem of course — those issues users were experiencing in terms of slow downloads and app crashes. Not to mention, quite a few users had trouble finding the music once it had been downloaded to their phone. Putting all that aside, it looks like Jay-Z was not all that pleased with the process himself. During a recent appearance on a New York radio station he used words such as “not cool” and “disheartening” to describe the experience.
“On the 24th I downloaded my app, I set it, I watched the clock count down and at 12 ‘clock I couldn’t get it. For me that’s not cool.”
The disheartening of that came in when Jay-Z spoke about how users had to wait to get the experience. On the flip side though, while there were some issues, Jay-Z did also speak about how this distribution model was the wave of the future and went on to mention how those who use it next will know a little more of what to expect.
VIA: NY Daily News
SOURCE: Power 105.1
Hey, stuff happens. I would have been more surprised if the launch went smoothly.
He’s got 99 problems…