By now, I'm sure you've all heard of the Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape.  If not, it's a compilation of fifteen different songs Mercedes makes available for free downoad every two months. According to Mercedes, the Mixed Tape has received a tremendous amount of attention, attracting over one million visitors and over twelve million downloads.

Now, in a follow up to the Mixed Tape's success, Mercedes has announced their latest forray into the field of digital entertainment - free audio book downloads. Starting in December, Mercedes will offer users the ability to download short stories, set to music, in a similar format to their current Mixed Tape. The service, entitled "Mercedes-Benz Text Tracks," will offer stories from a wide variety of literary genres, including poems, murder mysteries, and love stories; and, much like the current Mixed Tape, the stories will be taken from both amateur and professional authors around the world.

It sounds like an interesting idea, but after listening to the last Mixed Tape, I hope Mercedes' editorial staff has better taste in selecting stories than they do in selecting music. If not, these stories will be, quite possibly, the worst short stories set to music you've ever read.


OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE


Mercedes-Benz Launches Free Audio Book Download


Stuttgart, 10/07/2005

Following on from the huge success of “Mercedes Mixed Tape“, the free music download offering from Mercedes-Benz, the Mercedes-Benz will in future also be offering audio books online as free downloads. “Mercedes Text Tracks“, an initial collection of short stories set to music, will be available in both German and English from the beginning of December 2005.

“Free music downloads were a fantastic way of attracting younger and new target groups to the brand. Mercedes Text Tracks responds to many users’ requests for audio books in addition to music“, says Lothar Korn, Head of Global Advertising at Mercedes-Benz Pkw.

With nine compilations, over one million users world-wide and more than twelve million downloads since the project was launched in June 2004 the “Mercedes Mixed Tape“ music offering is one of the Internet’s most widely used free downloads. These numerous “Mercedes Mixed Tape“ fans were also the trigger for transferring the successful concept to audio books. A recent online survey of users revealed that audio books are the most sought-after contents after music.

Authors wanting to see their stories set to music can still apply at www.mercedes-benz.com/texttracks. It is open to both professional and amateur writers and all literary genres are welcome: poems, murder mysteries, love stories, thrillers, reportage, satire and many more. The only conditions are that the text should be written in German or English and be no longer than 22,000 characters.

The editorial department, which is also responsible for selecting the Mixed Tape artists, will likewise read and choose from the submitted texts. It’s definitely worth having a go: the short stories selected for the audio book collection will be recorded by professional narrators in a studio in German and English, produced in a limited run of CDs and made available on the Internet for downloading all over the world.

You can find out more information at:

http://www.mercedes-benz.com/texttracks


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