iTunes Music Store at one
updated 09:40 am EDT, Mon April 26, 2004
iTunes Music Store at one
With the iTunes Music Store celebrating its first birthday on Wednesday, CNET takes a look at the it has undergone since Apple's launch. Of note: some labels have started charging more for both singles and albums, although to date services have only passed on the higher charges to consumers who purchase albums; Walmart.com's 88-cent music store has come the closet to duplicating Apple's success, with the store garnering about half as many customers as iTunes had in March; and Apple's competitors continue to believe that Apple's closed approach to the iPod/iTunes will be what unseats both from their dominant positions, while the music industry itself would like to see more interoperability between all services and devices.
Very interesting
04/26, 09:50am reply
Apple hasn't had a real edge in a market for quite some time. It's fascinating to watch and see if Apple will make the same mistakes it made early on, or maybe this story has no parallel to the Macintosh's early period. Either way it's very interesting to watch.
John Dwight
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 1999
Album prices
04/26, 09:56am reply
Who cares if they charge more for an album. I actually think it hurts them. Usually if I find 6 or so good tracks on an album, I'll purchase the entire album for 9.99. If they charge more you bet I'm going to purchase single tracks. In the end it's their loss, not mine.
Toyin
Mac Elite
Joined: Nov 2000
love that
04/26, 10:09am reply
a m$ person saying apple spent lots of money around their closed system to generate awareness. that's all m$ does. what makes money besides office and the os? nothing, but they throw tons of money at everything else and will ride the wave until they win. deep pockets make it possible. any other company would go out of business because they couldn't afford those loss products. m$ will just keep coming. that's what they do. that's all they do.
nat
Junior Member
Joined: Mar 2002
If they raise prices...
04/26, 10:55am reply
If the record companies raise the prices that Apple is charges, I will think about going back to P2P to get my songs.
I think 10 an album and .99 a song is a little high as it is.
But if the record companies start raising prices for online sales so they can increase brick and morter sales, forget, it is not going to work. Back to p2p I go and they lose more money.
The old model is broken, embrase the future and support online SALES.
DeepDish
Forum Regular
Joined: May 2001
$10 is just right for me
04/26, 12:12pm reply
I've got no problem paying $10 for an album, especially with the instant gratification and convenience. But I will say that if the iTMS do go higher I'm with you that it will be time for a change, either limewire or Amazon.
Hmm, I did have a thought though. Maybe record companies are trying to entice users to purchase single tracks on certain albums. iTunes still isn't big enough to make a huge difference in sales so they could be trying to use the stats gained from individual sales to pick which songs should be released as singles...
dootbran
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2002