Amazon starts selling music online

The world slightly changed forever on this rather inconsequential day in 1998. That little website that started out in founder Jeff Bezos’ garage and sold books over the internet (a little mom and pop organisation called Amazon) decided to take on the might of giants like CDnow and Music Boulevard and move into selling music. It was the online retailer’s first steps towards becoming the global commerce goliath we know today.

Amazon started selling books online in 1995, the first ever title sold being that popular tome Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. After three years the company decided to diversify and announced that CDs and music would be its next area of interest. It finally turned a profit in 2001 and then started to sell absolutely everything that will or has ever existed including clothes, baby products, electronics, make-up, food, household items, jewellery, gnomes, novelty singing fish and trampolines.