In an interesting move, NTT DoCoMo intends to invest about 12 billion yen to gain a 42 percent stake in Tower Records Japan Inc (A privately owned company, no longer a part of the US mother company since 2002). They're basically planning some in-store promotions and of course, mobile marketing, but the main point seems to be to allow DoCoMo users to make music purchases using their FeliCa "wallet phones" by installing scanners in Tower Record stores. Not sure why they couldn't just install the readers without buying the entire company, but whatevs.

If all goes well, the deal should be done by later this month and both companies are hoping to collaborate on a music download service (most probably the Napster-Japan venture Tower Records was already working on with Napster). Then they make a movie with Liv Tyler in it and they can all play guitars on the roof.

No music, no life!
[eurotechnology.japan.blog]

DoCoMo to buy top stake in Tower Records [Reuters]

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