iTMS Named Fortune's Product Of The Year

Demolition writes "To go along with Time Magazine calling the iTunes Music Store the Invention Of The Year, Fortune Magazine has come along and proclaimed iTunes Music Store as the Product Of The Year. As it says in the article, 'With the success of its iTunes Music Store, Apple is almost single-handedly dragging the music industry, kicking and screaming, toward a better future.'" Also, Fortune named the G5 one of the 25 Best Products of the Year for Design.

Comments

Re:Well it's the marketing scheme of the year

[kfg]

That is convienience, not time overall.

Most Americans are horrible at "time and efficiency" analysis of their own lives, generally "saving" seconds at the cost of later hours and for no particular purpose.

Much as they the gambler thinks he "won" ten bucks on the lottery the other night and ignores the five hundred he spent to become a "winner."

People who sell convienience make a good living off of this tendency. You spend money to avoid irritation, not save time, and don't even count the time you have spend to earn that money into the equation.

It does not take you only two minutes to download a song. You are not counting your losses, such as the time to fire up the app and find the song.

Your milage may vary, of course, but in my case (and in the case of most Americans I would posit)even if I have to make a special trip to the store (open 24/7) for music I'm there inside of ten minutes by bicycle and can do my grocery shopping in the same store while I'm at it, thus saving the time I would have otherwise spent on the special trip to the grocery store.

Or, conversely, I can go do my grocery shopping and pick up several CDs of music at no more expense in time than it takes to toss them into my cart and the additional time it takes to ring them up while ringing up my groceries.

No, I'm afraid that, overall, what you save isn't so much time as it is saving having to move your butt out of your chair. Which is a different issue, and which, in all likelyhood, you have to move anyway to earn the money, so just stop at the music store you pass on your way home from work.

Saving irritation ( and needing to have it now is an issue of irritation, not time)is not the same thing as saving time and/or money, and more often than not must be payed for with greater irritation and money later.

KFG

Re:bullshit

[Quasar1999]

Damn it... I want to BUY music from iTMS in Canada... but oh no... can't do that... gotta go through the Canadian ripoffs of it... like PureTracks... They have next to no selection, only available in DRM'd WMA format, that cannot be played on MP3 players... and the kicker... I upgraded my motherboard, re-installed Windows (a requirement when upgrading motherboards), and lost all the songs I downloaded and payed for... their response... It's your responsiblity to make backups of your files and Digital certificates... WTF???

iTunes does not have any of these problems... yet I can't use it in Canada... I can buy an iPod, but can't buy music for it. I have no choice but to download music without paying for it... and I've gone through all the damn hoops trying to legally purchase music... The government and the Canadian version of the RIAA (whatever the hell they're called) has successfully made it so difficult for me (and all Canadians with tastes for music other than the crap on the radio) to buy music that I have no reasonable alternative but to continue to get my music from the underground...

Napster may have proven that there is a demand, but I'm sure I'm not the only Canadian that has proven we are willing to jump through a crap load of hoops to try and buy music instead of just downloading it for free.

So who's at fault here? Apple for not selling music outside the states? The RIAA for being anal? The Canadian government and their damned heritage law (forcing everyone to download at least 50% canadian content)? Or is it me (and people like me), that put up with all this crap, trying to go legit, and hitting a brick wall?