Chasing the long tail of new media
Apple’s latest gadget is everything we hoped for, and so much less. Granted, the iPad is very cool, but it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary. It is essentially an extra-large iPod Touch with optional 3G wireless.
In my last post I identified five things I’d be watching for during the iPad event.
Here’s what I saw: [Read more…] about The Day Apple Didn’t Change the World
Well, all I can say is that it’s about godsdammed time. Today’s big news out of Macworld — that the iTunes Music Store is going DRM-free AND adding a tiered pricing structure — is good news for everyone involved.
It’s good news for consumers because — from the consumer standpoint — DRM sucks fully, totally and utterly. No matter how it was spun as one of those “for your protection” things, or as “protection for the artist,” it’s been proven time and time again to be a big pain in the ass for consumers. Anytime you purchase an artifact — including a digital file — with eithervsome kind of purely arbitrary use restriction and/or dependency on the large corporation that sold you the artifact to keep it working, that’s potential trouble. Period.
[Read more…] about Apple Gets Smart With The DRM and the Pricing
So here’s the deal: The National Music Publisher’s Association has said that they want to increase the royalty rate for each legal download from $0.09 to $0.15 per song. Apple has responded by threatening to shut down iTunes.
I assume that “iTunes” means “iTunes Music Store,” and this has nothing to do the the TV Shows, Films and Applications that also go through iTunes, because, well, that would just be stupid.
I’m not here to argue the merits of what one side will say is only a six cent increase and the other side will say is a 66% increase, nor am I going to point out that this is Apple’s way of saying that if they don’t continue to get exactly what they want, they’re going to take their ball and go home.
But I will say this: if the iTunes Music Store went away tomorrow, it wouldn’t even be a blip on my radar.
As part of my Medialoper reporting duties, I often venture into the real world to get a sense of what’s happening outside the walls of the Internet. I have set up a little lab to study the media consumption habits of ordinary Americans. In order to keep the science almost rigorous, the group I’ve assembled is pretty much random, much like, well, what you’d find in an average office setting.
Since the dawn of the 2006-2007 Fall television season, I’ve had two conversations relating to traditional motion picture viewing. The first was a rather bizarre discussion about Lost. It started out as a review of the season premiere, but, well, died. Somehow it was a rehash of Season One — which, thankfully, I had seen enough of to fake my way through the conversation. Never let it be said that we don’t go the extra mile here.
[Read more…] about Report From The Field: Nobody’s Paying Attention
Last week we were startled to learn about Zune’s viral DRM system. As it turns out, the whole thing may have been a miscommunication on the part of Microsoft’s Zune Insider. But that doesn’t mean that Zune isn’t responsible for spreading the DRM virus. On the contrary, there’s mounting evidence that Zune is directly responsible for a mutation of the virus.
With the release of Zune, Microsoft has intentionally turned its back on its previous DRM standard – the PlaysForSure system. As a result, PlaysForSure partners are starting to drop support for Microsoft’s old DRM system in favor of their own proprietary DRM systems.
On Monday Real Networks and SanDisk announced that the Rhapsody music service will be switching from PlaysForSure to Real’s own Rhapsody DNA system. In an attempt to emulate Apple’s iTunes/iPod experience, SanDisk will release a new player that will be tightly integrated with the Rhapsody music service. The move is designed to position both companies against the upcoming Zune Marketplace as well as iTunes.
[Read more…] about The DRM Virus Is Spreading – A Pandemic May Be Near
So I downloaded and installed iTunes 7 last week, plugged in my iPod Nano, and I saw the strangest thing: all of my music had disappeared. It was there in iTunes 6, but not so much anymore. 4GB — 700 songs (that 1000 songs is a 128k joke) — had simply vanished. Gone like Kahoutek.
Except of course, it wasn’t: according to the space indicator, it was all still there, taking up room on the Nano’s hard drive. I had 3.72GB of something taking up space on my , it’s just that neither iTunes nor my Nano could find it. This, BTW, is exactly one of my fears about the already infamous Zune “three days / three plays” issue: the music stays on your hard drive, but is forever inaccessible.
So I said frack that, and restored the iPod, figuring that I would just start from scratch. After determining that it was all clear, I did what I’ve always done: used Windows Explorer to drag a file directly to the iPod window in iTunes, only, unlike every single other time in the last year I’ve owned the Nano, it didn’t show up. Oh sure, it took space, but wasn’t seeable as a song. Gee thanks!
This is going to be pretty short and sweet. I’m sure that Kirk may have a blow-by-blow analysis of all of Zune’s shortcomings forthcoming, but I just want to do a quick take on what is supposed to make Zune an “iPod Killer:” — that killer app that would coax people like me away from purchasing yet another iPod — the wireless song-sharing.
Of all of the product announcements made during today’s Apple event, the most surprising, by far, was the pre-announcement of a new set-top box. Code named iTV, the box will use standard wireless networking to feed iTunes content to any home entertainment center. The device is scheduled to come out in the first quarter of 2007.
Does anyone remember the last time Apple pre-announced a new product this far in advance? What happened to the legendary Apple secrecy? A huge part of Apple’s mystic is built around the intense reaction the press has to the unveiling of unexpected new products. That coverage usually drives customers to jump on the bandwagon and buy the latest Apple products immediately. By previewing iTV this far in advance Apple risks losing both the buzz and consumer interest during the months leading up to its release. Worse yet, iTV won’t be available for the holiday shopping season.
[Read more…] about Why Steve Jobs Pre-announced Apple’s iTV Product
How many times have you asked yourself, “if only my iPod docking station were a robot? And not just any robot, but a robot that will follow me around, playing all of my favorite iPod music?”
If you’re like me, the answer is “dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times.” Well, finally all of your hopes have been fulfilled and all of your prayers have been answered.
I’m going to call it the iPodBot, but its real name is the Miuro, and it is going to be your newest — and bestest — robot friend!
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, we had a little something called “AM Radio”. On AM Radio, they played something called “singles”. These singles were sometimes just that — individual songs recorded by artists. Sometimes these singles came from a flat piece of grooved vinyl called an “album”.
This being the the olden days (think approximately the time that the wonders of electricity were fully explored), sometimes you’d hear a single on the radio and you’d go to the store and buy it. The single generally had two songs, on on the A side and one on the B side. Some people took the whole power of the purchasing dollar thing further and bought entire albums.