Walkman's an also-ran in MP3 footrace: Apple's new iPod nano has left Sony's revamped music player in its dust.(Hard Sell)

Daily Variety, September, 2005 by Bing, Jonathan

WHEN SONY and Apple unveiled their latest portable music players last week, all the elements were in place for a good old-fashioned marketing war. Only it wasn't a war. It was a rout. Sony's new digital Walkman, a sleek, oval-shaped device with a luminous digital screen and storage capacity of 13,000 songs, was introduced at a Tokyo press event, followed by a party at a nightclub featuring Sony recording artist Franz Ferdinand.

How do I know all this? Pure luck. The new Walkman is available only in Japan. But it was covered by a single English-language blogger, who ...