But it’s a different world for music distribution since the days of “Just The Way You Are”, “It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me”, “Uptown Girl” and “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” Back then, Columbia radio reps would deliver the latest Joel singles to radio and then sit back and wait for the money to pour in.

This time, Joel’s new single will first be available on People magazine’s Web site on February 7th, and will appear on iTunes on February 20th.

Guess you could say he’s in a download state of mind.

. . . A Changing

When was the last time you used a floppy disk?

We thought so. Chances are you probably haven’t used any storage medium so small since … well, since Billy Joel released his last pop song.

Now a major U.K. retailer has decided it’s time to drop the flop.

PC World, Britain’s largest chain of computer retail stores, says it will not reorder any floppy disks once its current supply runs out.

The chain, which has 155 stores in Britain, says it has about 10,000 disks in stock.

“It’s had a good, long and productive life, but really, it’s just too small to hold any real data,” said PC World spokesman Hamish Thompson. “It just doesn’t make sense any more.”

Adding insult to the floppy disk’s image was PC World’s commercial director, Bryan McGrath.

“The sound of a computer’s floppy disk drive will be as closely associated with 20th-century computing as the sound of the computer dialing into the Internet,” McGrath said in a statement.