Following its acquisition of digital distribution company Mime360, Flipkart.com co-founder and COO Binny Bansal spoke with MediaNama about their plans to roll out digital distribution, potential conflict of interest with other music sites, pricing of music, and interestingly, why the company is looking at digital distribution despite the fact that its sales of music in physical (DVD) format is growing at 30%. Excerpts from the interview (more details on the acquisition here): MediaNama: Why have you acquired Mime360? Binny Bansal: We basically started talking to them a couple of months back, when we were integrating with them for our digital music launch, and we really liked the team and the technology platform that they had built. We acquired them for the team, for both the business and technology, and that is coupled with their strong domain knowledge of the music industry. They've been at it for the last two years, and they have built good relationships with the industry. The second is the robust digital distribution platform that they've built. It helps us with the time to market. MediaNama: What are you looking to achieve through Mime360? Binny Bansal: Music and ebooks are the two big ones, and then you have games and video, which are there, but all of this will be launched some time in the future. Music will be first to roll out. MediaNama: Will Mime360 will stay independent and continue servicing sites like Gaana.com, or will it be Flipkart-only? Binny Bansal: Yes, the Mime360 distribution platform…
