Apple Sells A Million Songs in Debut Week

Scrameustache writes "According to an Apple press release, the iTunes Music Store sold over one million songs during its first week. Over half of the songs were purchased as albums, and over half of the 200,000 songs offered on the iTunes Music Store were purchased at least once. Those new iPods are selling like hotcakes too..."

Comments

Proof of brand importance?

[taeric]

How much of this success is due to this being a truly significant advance in implementations versus Apple simply having a heavy presence in the market?

I'm not trying to sideline the significance of the success, I'm just questioning why it is really successful. From what I have heard, this is not all that much different than approaches that others took earlier (Didn't eMusic, the popular word among those that don't like iTunes, originally sell per song?).

Alternatively still, maybe the market is just now ready for such a store model as this. Timing is, afterall, very important in delivery of a product to market. Too early can be as devastating as too late.

Re:Proof of brand importance?

[feldsteins]

How much of this success is due to this being a truly significant advance in implementations versus Apple simply having a heavy presence in the market?

Put simply, it's both. Apple has great brand recognition, marketing muscle and a loyal customer base. But none of that should take away from the fact that this is a significant advance in implimentation.

How? Well, basically the only games in town for legit online music downloading involved one or more of the following onerous "gotchas."

1. Rental of music. That is, you don't pay your monthly subscription, you can't listen to "your" music anymore. At $20 per month, this starts to get pretty stupid. No mystery why this never took off.

2. Over-zealous DRM after downloading. Once the file is on your computer you can't burn a CD. Or you can, but only certain tracks. Or only if you pay an additional fee. Only one CD, please. Etc., etc., etc. Transferring the file to another machine? Hassle. Quibbles about Apple's "Fairplay" DRM technologies notwithstanding, they're lightyears ahead of what came before.

Apple hasn't gotten it 100% right, but they clearly are hitting the 95% mark and one expects the model to be refined further still. Other services have been consistently below the 50% if you ask me. Not that it was their fault! The RIAA basically either owned these downloading services or at the very least severely restricted the terms of the music licenses. That is to say, the RIAA killed those other services before they were born.

One of the greatest achievements of the iTMS isn't the fact that clever Apple engineers came up with a great idea first - hell, everyone knew the basics of what was needed for online music downloading business to be sucessful. But the RIAA wouldn't allow such a model! No, cleverness aside, the great achievement is the fact that the Big Steve managed to convince the record companies that his model was a good idea for them. Obviously they had rejected such liberal, consumer-friendly models countless times before. I'm recalling a quote from the top guy at Sony that said (paraphrasing here!) "I think it was about fifteen seconds after Steve started talking that I decided to license our entire library to him."

"Reality Distortion Field"? Maybe. However he did it, he managed to get the RIAA to swallow a viable music downloading business model. Viable because it contains enough rights for customers for them to put down their hard earned cash and enough controls for content providers to put up their wares.

I hope this doesn't rescue the recording industry.

[Schlemphfer]

I was given an iPod about six months or so, and it's the best toy I've ever owned. There's nothing like flying coast to coast, and having 5000 songs to choose from. And it made my recent cross-country road trip a joy...the only thing that could have made it more perfect for road trips is if the unit included a laser jammer to keep me from getting nailed at that speed trap in Cleveland.

It blows my mind that Apple has been able to improve on the iPod. As if the original's form factor was too thick (not quite as thick as a deck of cards), they still somehow cut it almost in half.

I played around with the new music service this week. Super impressively done. Having said that, I don't think I'll order any music from it. The record companies have shown themselves to be complete bastards for decades now, in how they screw over the public and the artists. I hate to think that Apple's now riding to this industry's rescue, perhaps only a year or two before the entire industry would go down the crapper. If there was only some way I could use this service with the bulk of the money going straight to the artist, I'd be incredibly enthusiastic about this whole thing.

I'm always thrilled to see Apple succeed at something, since I think they tend to make beautifully designed products. I just hope that this success isn't the event that keeps the parasitic recording industry form withering away.

Re:Hooray

[Panix]

I think that you are mistaken here. Apple doesn't need any more contracts, since it already has contracts with all five of the major labels, and the independent labels are reportedly itching to get in on it as well! The model has succeeded already, by giving us a way to purchase current music legally and easily electronically. This is a good thing.

Now, as far as the RIAA is concerned, and your comments about artist compensation, a lot remains to be seen. I envision independent artists and smaller labels being able to distribute music much easier through the iTunes Music Store, and offering them potential for success. They could release a few "singles" for free on the Music Store, and then hope that people buy more songs, or the whole album. And since they aren't producing any CDs, they have less overhead, and can get more of the profits. Just a thought on how the future could be bright.