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MP3 Market Approaching Critical Mass
An anonymous reader writes "Led by the Apple iPod, Jupiter Research says that sales of DAPs are reaching a point where it will ignite an industry of support products and services. According to Jupiter analyst David Card
'Historically, any new device or medium that reaches a U.S. household penetration of 15 percent to 20 percent creates a critical mass of customers for other products and services.' The iPod already has a slew of peripherals out there and this is particularly good news for the paid download services like iTunes, especially with Apple announcing Wednesday they sold another 5.3 million iPods last quarter."
...another News.com article on this topic:
Music moguls trumped by Steve Jobs?
When Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs walked into the suites of top record label executives in 2002, iTunes software in hand, he was welcomed as a trailblazer to a digital music future.
Now, nearly two years after Apple's iTunes launch, record executives have become worried that they have inadvertently ceded too much power over their industry to this charismatic computer executive.
Frustrated at what they see as Jobs' intransigence on song pricing and other issues, some record executives are now turning their hopes toward other partners, particularly mobile phone carriers eager to get into the business of selling music. They see this new focus as a way to broaden the digital music business, and lessen Apple's dominance over their market in the process.
[...]
For example, Apple wants to sell all its songs for 99 cents each, a single price point that's easy for consumers to understand. But the record labels have pressed for the ability to vary prices to maximize their own sales. They want to sell older titles at a discount--like the $9.99 CDs available in most record stores--and charge more for popular songs to take advantage of market demand.
Full story
I understand that the iPod craze has been great for Apple, but I wonder how many people actually buy those accessories that are available (such as the voice recorder and FM transmitter). It's one thing to pay a premium for a high-quality Apple iPod; it's another thing to pay $30 for a an add-on - for features that come standard with other MP3 devices!
Cripes. These iPods are like Rabbits in Australia!
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
I love that term, it makes it sound like there'll be an explosion. Everyone stop buying i-pods! it's our only hope!
But wouldn't that initial product that makes the penetration be a PC (or PC-esque Mac)? iPod and isotopes are the side effect of having a computer. Cascade effect in action. Soon, designer ear-buds with be the 'in' thing.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt = [citation required]
...in this story that suggests that Apple's music dominance is not viewed as favourable by record labels. In fact, it mentions the labels' efforts to start working with wireless phone carriers to charge more for music via ring tones, which is "more in line with their economics".
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
Takes a real Nostradamus to make such a bold prediction.
Insert tenuous ipod reference [here] to make slashdot front page.
When I can get one of these in the US for less than $100, then I will agree. Until then, there is more mass to be had before criticality.
I'm sure this was a report sponsored in part by Apple in an attempt to boos the stock price back up soon after Apple's stock got hammered by the Street because there are widespread concerns about what Apple does "next". i.e., is the Ipod a one-hit wonder?
I'm sure the Apple zealots will mod this into oblivion.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I, for one, welcome our new digital music overlords. Wait, shit. Where am I?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can play MP3s on my phone, PDA, handheld...etc
Why is this even news? Maybe interesting to get a real article about this topic, but hardly news.
Don't be surpised to get a free "made in china" portable MP3 player with your next CD purchase.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yeah, products like lawsuits from the MPAA & RIAA. And services like defense lawyers...
Now, nearly two years after Apple's iTunes launch, record executives have become worried that they have inadvertently ceded too much power over their industry to this charismatic computer executive.
Frustrated at what they see as Jobs' intransigence on song pricing and other issues, some record executives are now turning their hopes toward other partners...
Cripes, this is so damn typical of the entertainment industry. They're so interested in screwing everyone they can for a buck that the minute someone is successful using their property, they feel they need to bite back. It's rather like watching a bunch of cavemen around the first fire. One gets burned so they all put the fire out with their clubs, then thump their chests and hoot in victory before sitting around in the dark and cold again.
I think RIAA deserves the Duh! Prize (if there was one.) Next year or so it'll be the MPAA doing the same thing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I for one welcome our new Ipod(tm) overlords?
www.whitedust.net
no matter how much companies like Sony and others try.
So long as you can buy a cheap iPod brand new for $99 at any Apple store - and pick up one on craigslist for about $50 - the hundreds of millions of consumers who use them will set the market.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I know a few people who spent their unemployment checks on iPods.
Gotta have priorities.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Now all we need is a report of how many of those iPods are sent back for faulty manafacturing and instability...
I cringe everytime I see a person jogging down the street with their iPod on the side, listening to music. (If you didn't know the hard drive in the iPod if shaken/moved at an exact point when the HD spin, it can/will break the iPod and render it totally useless)
When will the quality of music reach tolerable mass?
This is the reason why I wished everything was a little bit more open sourced then what it is...
Even the President uses iTunes+iTMS!
Steve Jobs was talking about the "iPod economy" in January at the MacWorld Keynote.
It's not "will ignite," it's "is already here."
Good job, Slashdot, keep up the irrelevance.
"Ignite an industry of support" ??? I am not sure if a lot of the mp3 players available in market today need much service due to breakdowns and all. Although I know that the 5.3 million iPods sold last year will indeed need 5.3 million new batteries in 18 months. I'm sure a lot of people will try to beat Apple's $99 battery replacement service with something cheaper and faster. Or may be bring in your dead iPod and get a brand spanking new SONY MP3 Walkman instead. Talk about rade-ins!
Mozilla stole tabs from NetCaptor. So what? Right?
If MP3 players are rapidly approaching critical mass, how long will it take before car stereos will feature minijack inputs as standard?
Considering the cost of including one versus the cost of replacing the deck so that you can plug your MP3 player in, why wouldn't more manufacturers be doing this? I know a few are, but I'm in the market for a new car and the deck that comes with it figures into the real cost. Replacing the stock stereo with one that will take input from my MP3 player should be unneccessary if these things are really at critical mass.
Synergy is your friend
George Bush's list of iPod songs was released... http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&p id=2321...
Georgie only has around 200 songs loaded up, I like the list of suggested songs to fill some of the thousands of empty slots.
I think it's a little late to say that a support industry is about to ignite for iPods and other music players. The last 20% of every issue of MacWorld has been full of iPod accessories for well over a year now. I'd say that the support industry ignited some time ago, and now has lots of nice coals for cooking.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
They were talking about this on NPR yesterday, but instead of "critical mass" they called it market saturation.
Thats why Apple's stock took a dump yesterday
Problem for apple is that everyone already has an ipod and it will be tough to find new people to sell to.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
News for the blind. Stuff that's obvious.
Is anyone else suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to chamber a round into their shotgun? Is this the same Jupiter that is hell-bent on screwing over the internet with spyware and adware? If so, how on god's green earth is it that we're taking their "research" seriously?
The iPod craze is officially over, because Jupiter Research said it is about to explode. Thanks, Jupiter! Thanks a lot!
These are guys who hyped "New Economy" companies until the dot-com bubble burst. With their razor scooters and their afros, they literally destroyed billions of dollars in market capitalization. There is no Earthly trend so massive, no business plan so potent, that Jupiter Research cannot destroy it.
That's why they are called Jupiter. They are big. They have a lot of destructive gravity. And they are made ENTIRELY of gas.
Do tell o' wise one, where may I see this promised land of the MP3 market? All I see are DRMed AACs, WMAs, RMs, whatever...
I'd be a very happy person if there was a legal MP3 market, but alas the title is misleading.
Do tell o' wise one, where may I see this promised land of the MP3 market?
You make a 74 minute long playlist of DRMed AACs, WMAs, and RMs and save them to an audio CD. Then you click on "Import as MP3". Yeh, you lose a miniscule amount of audio quality that you MAY be able to hear if you listen to it, but when you're walking down the street or sitting on a train with earbuds connected to your MP3 player... you'll never notice it.
I won't recognize Critical Mass until they start putting those damned playing cards in the spokes. Then, they will definately be heard! Wait, what were we talking about again?
CowboyNeal approaching critical mass
I don't really like the sound of mp3s vs their full-flavoured counterparts.
If i'm going to buy a song i prefer its fidelity to be as good as it can be. Maybe down the road we'll see next generation iPods and other players advertising this "new technology" of being able to hold non-compressed, non lossy-format songs...
Till then, i'll stick with my $20 Sony Discman, rack' of CDs and accept the tradeoffs..
I know i'm a minority, but i'm not alone.
do() || do_not();
Wednesday Apple announced their second quarter results - net profit of .34 per share. And then then projected 3rd quarter net profit to be around .28 per share - the stock tanked over night.
The iPod line represents 30% of apples revenue right now. I attribute the lowered projection to be based on Apple's feeling that for the first time, they're not going to sell more iPods next quarter than they did this quarter.
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Yes, that's true - Jesus (if real) was cool
Every major religion recognizes that there was a man Jesus of Nazareth who lived about 2000 years ago in the land now known as Israel. This is not disputed by any main stream religion or government. ...the problem is, is all the different interpretations of his comments. They all start nicely, but end up with ... 'so you must die as the infadel that you are'
Simply a falicy. In no translation of the Bible and even in the non-canonical books (those are the one's that did not make it into the New Testament) does Jesus ever say that anyone should die. Jesus says that His Father will judge them but Jesus never calls for anyone to be killed.In fact, the worst thing that Jesus ever says is that "My Father hates" when discussing something very common in America today - divorce.
Look, I am no biblical scholar and I didn't grow up going to church every Sunday, but I do know that what you have posted looks like the rantings of someone who is very hurt by an institution they do not understand. Why don't you try learning more about the Bible. Find a local church, temple, or mosque this weekend and go and pray. If you don't know what to pray for, start by praying for enlightenment.
Know that God has a purpose for all of us and loves all His children. Give thanks for that and know that you are loved.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
wtf is a DAP? thanks for explaining your esoteric acronyms, you insensitive clod
Apples stock slipped almost 10% yesterday after news that iPod sales were not as strong as people expected they would be. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D89FF 2B80.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down
No smoking sigs indoors.
Using the Casette Tape and Compact Disc as previous examples, let's look at other indicators:
- In car support for the media (3rd party manufacturers like Alpine are supporting iPod as well as luxury brands like BMW. GM is supporting all DAP's by making a front panel line in standard)
- In home support for the media (Apple Airport Express allows for music streaming)
- Portable support (just like the Walkman, we have the iPod)
- As seen on TV (plenty of Movies and TV shows with characters using the devices like a recent Law & Order that opened with two teens discussing how many songs can fit on an iPod)
- Major industry backing (from Microsoft to HP to Virgin Records, Digital Audio is supported by the Fortune 500 globally)
- Small business using the format in their name (don't we all miss "Tower Records" records? Or "CD Warehouse"? I am sure there are plenty of Web properties with iPod in the name. "iPodlounge.com" comes to mind.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
When we say "RIAA", we mean that as shorthand for "The Record Companies".
We get it. You post this every time we use "RIAA" and it seems that you're not smart enough to get what is meant in this context.
PLEASE DO NOT TYPE IN YOUR PEDANTIC MESSAGE ANYMORE!
Yep, these are the guys who proclaimed that "home taping is killing music" back in the 1980, and killed off DAT in the 1990s. The MPAA cried bloody murder when VHS hit the market, but amazingly the global film industry is still quite robust.
What really cracks me up is that the RIAA had their heads so far up their asses that they had *no strategy* whatsoever for online music sales until Jobs came along and offered them a way out. Now that they have a path away from stupidity, they're trying to jack prices up again, the same way they did with CDs.
It's like they're fundamentally unprepared to realize that the landscape is changing and that they can't make the same margins they used to make per song. They have to shift their entire way of doing business, but they're so fat and happy that it's like Jabba the Hut doing the long jump.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You can buy a Tungesten Palm Pilot for the same price and with zLib get as much mp3 and then you have a computer too. Yay!
Last fall I was using my credit card for iTunes to download some songs. About two weeks later my credit card had been declined at a local store. I called my credit card company only to find out that someone had used my card for various online purchases and exceeded its spending limit.
In stark contrast to what they claim in their commercials my credit card company(I am currently suing them so I cannot mention which one) has since been trying to hold me responsible for all those purchases. I contacted various credit card fraud organizations and had started an investigation.
As it turned out my credit card information had been stolen through Apple's iTunes!!! In the meantime I have been told that I am only one of many thousands affected.
The essence of the story: Do not ever submit your credit card information on iTunes. This is one of the worst mistakes I have made in my lifetime!
can/will = can but you used the 'will' to somehow make your statement seem stronger than it is. In other words I'm accusing you of trying to mislead. I've run many miles with an iPod and it's spun up the drive many times during those runs. I won't argue with the 'can' but the 'will' is pure BS.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Don't people understand that it is dangerous to ride a bicycle while listening to music!?
Digital Audio Player or Dynamic Asshat Potential or Dodecahedral Autonomic Psychrometric or Dapper Android Penis or Dilettante As Poseur or Delusional Acrophobic Pilot or . . . .
Well, the do make the iPod sock anyway
In all seriousness, they do make other stuff too: armbands, cables and adapters, other cases besides the sock, iPod camera connector, headphones w/remote, and battery packs for the shuffle.
AAC is a well-established standard. WinAMP can play and convert to AAC out of the box.
Of course, I would never pay for digital music (i.e. I always want a non-protected physical medium for backup), so I don't really care about connecting to iTMS, which I view as a rip-off.
"Yeh, you lose a miniscule amount of audio quality that you MAY be able to hear if you listen to it, but when you're walking down the street or sitting on a train with earbuds connected to your MP3 player... you'll never notice it."
...and then you have the balls to tell us $1/song for crap is a good deal.
Well, you start out with crappy quality (128kb/s audio), and then crapify it further by reripping to MP3.
Sucker.
can't personally say anything about mp3s or whatever Apple uses for iTunes, but I have ripped a large number of CDs into ogg files at the highest quality setting, and I honestly can't tell the difference from the originals, even on my Bose home theater system.
They have little competition in their iPod space... so they sell at a premium and can walk away rich.
If they were to start making accessories, they'd be treding on ground either already successful for other makers (and therefore a smaller market) or an unsafe venture into the unknown.
Notice they do have a couple accessories... like the iPod Photo's new camera jack. But this is something they hinted at early on (giving other companies the hint: "We're Apple, With us making this product first, you won't stand a chance"), and now they have no competition for it.
Despite appearing to be a trend setter and a risk taker... they really do play it as safe as possible. iTMS was made only after years of research and watching the market... AND having a successful product to go with it. The iPod itself was just a luxury novelty item when it first came out... and Apple didn't care less if it didn't sell millions. Apple focused on what got it attention. OS X got it plenty of attention in those early iPod years. The G4 Cube was a publicity stunt. And if the iPod died just as hard as the Cube... they'd let it go and focus where they knew they could profit. They were one quarter the company they are now... and played their cards close to their chest... saving aces only for the Perfect moment... and spending tons on market research to make SURE.
Just drop acid, already, and invent something better... or quit your whining.
I have an iPod Photo. I bought it just for the drive capacity; I thought the photo thing was a really dumb gimmic. We have 3,000 photos on ours now... and actually show them to people! It blows my mind that anybody would want to sit and look at them, but... they do!!!
One of the keys is pictures of kids. People take thousands of pictures of their kids... and other people love looking at all of them. It's cool to see changes over time.
Sadly, I'm even thinking of getting the AV kit now, and the camera connector! It makes no sense, but... it's useful.
It's also nice to have the color screen and some of the other little perks...
They do, but this person wouldn't care if iTunes dumped money in your bank account daily. He hates Apple and all Apple products because he is a fanboy of some other system. Apple and iTunes are his arch enemy, for some self righteous reason.
If you can't tell the difference between 128kb/s lossy compression and the audio CD there are couple of possible reasons:
1) The album is so old or recorded so poorly that the recording itself is highly compressed or missing significant chunks of the audio spectrum
2) The speakers/headphones you're using are poor. Earbuds that come with the iPod are pretty crappy compared with just a $30 set of headphones.
3) You don't have the ear to tell.
However, the difference between a CD and iTMS music on even moderate quality speakers is pretty obvious, and once you start hearing the differences, iTMS is spoilt for you, because you hear digital artifacts, and worse, the phase information is either missing or wrong in 128kb/s compressed music.
In any case, it will sound fine through earphone, but I don't think that's worth $1/song, particularly when there are options to buy CD's significantly cheaper, such as (a) BMGMUSIC.COM (b) Used (Amazon sells used CD's).
It is made for the runner. It is solid state, has near perfect sound reproduction, and is under $100.
photosMy Photostream
Just wait, Jobs is going to do to the movie industry what he did to the music industry. The Mac Mini will be a part of this new venture.
photosMy Photostream
He hates Apple and all Apple products
Ah yes. That would explain why I've spent over $2000 on Apple products this year. Grow up - not all of us are fanboys of any system. I just want (and have) an mp3 player which does what I want. Is that so unacceptable to you?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Errr.... no. In many industries, having a range of prices, especially that vary with time, allows not only for greater profits, but for larger numbers of satisfied customers. The math is a bit more involuted than a simple supply/demand scissors curve, because you also have to factor in substitutibility, price elasticity, and information costs, and time value of money, but in many situations this allows for a good thing all around.
This is one reason why grocery stores have sales; people who would not ordinarily buy a product at price X will consider buying it at price 0.9X. Furthermore, it's one reason why grocery stores accept manufacturers coupons; the customer gets a lower price, the grocery store gets slightly more money (for slightly more hassle), and the increased sales (and potentially increased regular customers) result in net higher profits for the manufacturer.
In this case, the RIAA is wishing that they could run the backcatalog at a discount, while charging a premium for newest releases. And if they were willing to, say, knock $0.24 off their current $0.65 share of the price for releases over 10 years old, while adding $0.01 to the recent releases and $0.25 to items released within the last year, I'd consider it likely to be a net benefit for consumers overall.
Someone with more background in economics and without a head cold might explain it better, but it comes down to: the ability for suppliers to have prices that vary is a good thing for the consumer. Unnaturally fixed prices (such as, say, when fixed by a cartel) are bad.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I agree man. This is insane. Here's a little note to the RIAA and the recording industry executives responsible for jacking up prices:
"I like the Apple store because it DOES have a simplistic, easy to understand pricing model. Because of it's ease of use, and because I dislike being butt raped by insane CD prices which offer no additional functionality or value to me, I BUY my music through iTMS.
"If you raise prices, you will loose people like myself from every BUYING music. It's up to you now. You're not going to sell legal copies at higher prices. If you try, you will loose revenue and loyal customers. That's the price point, and you should listen to your uncle Steve because he knows your industry better than you do.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
"Apple announcing Wednesday they sold another 5.3 million iPods last quarter"
How many of these were replacements for units with dead batteries?
(I kid! I kid!)
Just like with PCs equals Windows, this lack of coherence is goint to byte us all in the future.
Especially now that they've got the Shuffle, they won't want to drop the price of the regular iPod much more. If you really want an iPod, you either catch a deal such as the Audible 100 off any "audible compatible player" or go the freeiPods.com route. Your only other option is probably ebay but I found ebay to be nearly as expensive as the apple store.
It's an unfortunate part (at least for us consumers) of Apple's business model that their price point stays the same. They tend to keep the price fairly steady but increase features over time - see the iPod Photo for an example of this in action. There's a chance a solid capacity iPod might be cheap(er) someday, but it's going to be a while...as long as they can rake in the cash selling iPods and iPod Mini and iPod Shuffle at the current price, they will.
-Jay
If that market is dominated ba a single company and all those add on products are for that company, it's not so goos news.
Right now, I can actually still buy a non-Apple MP3 player and not have to worry about losing out on third party functionality--I can pick and choose based only on the value and functionality of thw device itself (which I think is better for many non-Apple players). But if it turns out that a lot of value is in the add-ons, then I won't have a choice anymore--I will have to buy an iPod, even though I don't like it. In different words, the Apple iPod would become a non-choice like MS Windows.
As far as MP3 hitting critical mass goes, isn't it already there?
Doesn't everybody already have some kind of hardware or software these days that can play the MP3 format?
What I want to see is audiobooks sold in MP3 CD format. Currently, audiobooks take a huge number of tapes (or conventional CD's) to hold audio, and because it's spoken word, it would compress very easily while still remaining high quality.
I've converted the Harry Potter books to MP3 CD's, and they sound great. The first two books even fit together on a single CD! All this was from a large stack of grossly inefficient standard audio CD's. No need to store spoken word at 44100x16x2 uncompressed!
I'm hoping the makers of audiobooks will realize that MP3 has already hit critical mass for years now....
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
Be careful assuming that other people *really* want to look at yet another picture of your kids, instead of just looking to be polite.
Maybe my perspective will change when *I* have kids, but a few pictures go a long way.
And this all has wtf do do with the article? Y'all should find some bible site you can rant at.
http://www.apple.com/ipod/bmw/
And we believe everything that a CEO says to be gospel....
Semi-independent confirmation and analysis is helpful. Which is why Jupiter and other consultants are in business.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
but I'm not in the market for a BMW or a GM.
Synergy is your friend
You're getting old. Slashdot is where old nerds come to bitch.
That sounds insulting, but it's true. The musical part of the brain seems to just freeze at some point. Remember when you were young and your parents thought your music was noise? It happens to everyone eventually. It was happening when Mozart was alive. There's no reason to suppose it hasn't happened as long as we've had polytonal music.
That's not to say mainstream music is very good right now, but it really rarely has been. Disco? 50s clone bands? Yi.
We had a pretty good couple of years in the late 90s and in the mid 80s, but that was an odd aberration. Radio is back to normal.
Still, there is *excellent* music from the late 70s that got very little radio time when it came out, even while bad disco was at its peak. Young people picked up the good stuff via word of mouth. When word of mouth stops being enough to bring you new music, you're starting to age. For geeks this happens fairly early, often in the mid-20s. Geeks have a hair trigger on their close-mindedness nerve.
i'm still praying for myxamatosis
copyright © 2005 Flamsmsmark the ravings of a melancholly i
When has the music industry *EVER* done this? When have they ever discussed doing it for online music? These guys have shown over and over again that they are interested in standardized pricing for music, punctuated only by *more expensive* pricing on certain high-demand albums.
If their track record wasn't so horrendous, I'd believe that they are truly interested in coming up with flexible pricing. But they've shown us nothing to indicate that they're really serious about doing anything other than holding on to their doomed business model for as long as possible.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
A simple cable and you could transfer them from your computer... *except* that most mobile providers sell you their phones, which are then feature locked so that you can't do thinks like upload ringtones from your PC.
:-)
One would say that this it he trade-off because they *give* you a phone for free... but that really doesn't happen anymore. You sign a 3-year-contract, which locks you in so that if you break it you end up paying a hefty sum. Even if you *buy* your phone straight out, you haven't really bought the advertised phone but a crippled parody of what the phone was supposed to be. And of course you can't use *other* phones... because even if you buy the exact same model it has to be one from the provider.
That's my little rant anyhow, I will specify that this seems to (locally) apply to Telus and Bell, but Rogers is much more friendly with 3rd-party phones... they're just happy to sell you service and screw up your billing every so often
I notice that it has a battery which has to be charged. If you're playing it in a standard tape deck, couldn't you provide most of the power needed by the spinning of the tape rollers turning a gyro and/or charging a small capacitor?
Just installed a $200CAD JVC deck in a younger friend's car a few weeks ago. The sound is actually quite good. It's got a 24-bit DAC, 200W output (that doesn't frag out over half-volume), RCA inputs, subwoofer line-out and dual 5V RCA outputs.
EQ functions seem rather decent as well. I've talked to a few people about this deck and the consensus has been that the cheaper brands such as JVC actually do quite well (even better than the big brands quite often) in the lower-end, they just don't *have* a higher end like the $1000+ units other companies sell.
As somebody who has owned overpriced Sony Mp3 decks myself... I'd say that you might want to consider some of the lesser brands and just get a decent-but-cheap deck (and besides, as I mentioned it does have RCA-style input jacks, which could easily be adapted to the small headphone style line jack).
a) It's an item that is appealing to both the middle-class and wealthy
b) It must be a rather simple/easy interface to use... GWB isn't known for his technical knowhow...
"That way, folks keep buying their products like good little sheep"
Dude, we download their stuff.
Its kinda like not buying their stuff, only we get to listen to it anyway.
Another way to look at it is that Apple's brand is a kind of promise and that this promise is consistent with the price. People, therefore, can expect the iPod to remain at a certain price-point based on their expectations that the brand carries.
Economists are always saying the price is a compact, efficient form of information. I think in this case that is true.
and probably some more that I don't remember.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
But then, if you think Aerosmith, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osbourne were mainstream radio material when they first came out, I'm not sure what country you've been living in. Tom Petty and the Beatles were reasonably mainstream, but don't forget the years the Beatles spent slumming around in Germany. They weren't a manufactured band.
The equivalent of Britney Spears is ABBA, not Led Zeppelin, and ABBA is indeed all but gone. The reasonably modern equivalent of the groups you mentioned? Maybe Flaming Lips, maybe White Stripes. Hard to say who'll stand the test of time right now.
Do keep in mind that the Baby Boom has led to a strange bubble of popularity around some things, too. They had only three television stations and a much bigger population than current youth do. The baby boom managed to freeze a few things from 1960 through 1979 into permanent salability. That's probably a freak occurrence.
If you think Britney Spears is what's "in" among people who really care about music right now then you're out of it. That's all there is to it. The music scene bubbles below that candy surface, just as it always has.
Ok, don't listen to crap radio. Got it?
Seriously, check out "indie" radio... NPR. Its the one on your dial that doesn't play commercials, isn't owned by ClearChannel, etc etc
College radio stations work as well.
Recently, I've been listening to the Detroit NPR station, WDET. Here's the link to their stream selection: http://www.wdetfm.org/listenlive/
They play a nice range of music, and have a GREAT Jazz show on at 7pm EST.
FLAC is lossless, and comes in at about 60% the size of the original WAV file. It can always be decompressed and burned to CD, giving a duplicate of the original. So you get to keep that fidelity.
The Rio Karma plays FLAC files. With its 20 GB harddrive, that's ~60 of your CDs with you in a space of about 1/4th that of your CD player, not to mention the booklet needed to carry round those 60 CDs. Not bad for a player that's been around for a few years. Great audio output signal and power, 5-band parametric EQ, etc.
Maybe I should say it "played" FLAC. Looks like its no longer being made, and we await the Karma2/Chroma. Pretty cool device if you get one of the remaining ones, currently cost under $200.
Hm. How about... today? Using Amazon's convenient on-line store for a price quote (brick-and-mortar based Sam Goody isn't much different), compare the price of Brittany's 2003 "In the Zone" at $14 (list $19) with Richard Marx's 1989 "Repeat Offender", list price $7? They strike me as being about the same grade of crap. The back catalog song also seems lower to me, and lower than when I bought it at the store (I'm ashamed to admit) even without factoring inflation. $7 also seems lower than most albums released in the last three or four years.
True, one point does not a statistical sample make, so feel free to do a comprehensive study and report on it, or to cite one if you know of such.
These guys have shown over and over again that they are interested in standardized pricing for music, punctuated only by *more expensive* pricing on certain high-demand albums.
That they want more expensive pricing on certain high demand items is something I will agree with. I will even go so far as to say that their pricing of high demand items may be beyond elasticity points-- although that probably ties my earlier observations about pricing to why it's so easy to find those hot new albums on sale well below list price. (The RIAA's unscrupulous accounting and contract terms also contribute, but that's a different rant.) However, they do tend to drop prices on older items in lower demand as well.
With current distribution methods, there is a threshold price, where the cost of stamping and printing the CD, putting it in a jewel case, printing the liner notes, and getting to market equals any revenues earned. There may be a few of these out there, but not many. Internet based music stores like iTunes or Napster have potentially lower manufacturing/distribution costs (or rather, decentralized and customer-optional costs-- I can print pretty CDs if I want to buy a CD-printer, or I can hand label). The lower costs allow for a lower threshold price. It still won't be zero (got to pay the CEO's salary somehow), but it might be as low as $0.10 per song. Again, not a lot would be out there at that price; but there might be a fair number of interesting old items in the $0.50 range.
Of course, in addition to elasticity of price, there's also the question of substitutability. In other words, while for some people only Brittany's latest will satisfy, a lot of people would just as soon add another cheaper old hit to their collection of listening music, rather than Brittany, regardless of whether or not Brittany is in fact the better artist. (That she isn't adds insult to injury, but doesn't change the main point.) Thus, the RIAA cartel probably does not lower prices on older albums as much as it ought to in a truly competitive market. Now, with the Indie rise, half-or-more-compent Indie bands can serve the same function as half-or-more-compent older releases, and have a larger potential target market since nobody owns copies yet.
This competition from and substitutibility of indie label output produces incentive for the RIAA to lower prices to help remain competitive. Of course... with iTunes, they can't. No wonder they're feeling the pressure.
As for the "standardized" pricing, that ties into the fact that they ARE effectively a cartel; and thus they want to have limits to price variation. Unfortunately for them these days, with various artists putting up free samples, so that plan has major holes.
The limited number of prices may have another explanation. I suspect that there's also issues of info
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
My primary point is that mutterings from the music industry about their desire variable pricing are a red herring. Not once in any of the articles I've read have the music industry execs said anything about setting variable pricing other than in the context of raising prices. Here's an example of this mentality, from a late February article:
Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand for online music sales but the success of Apple's music store had prompted concern that they may now be too low.
This is exactly the reason that the industry's first forays into online music sales (pressplay and Rhapsody) were such abysmal failures. They are not concerned with expanding the volume of music sold. Instead, they are trying to shield themselves from what they see as the negative effects of P2P filesharing. Apple has the right idea, in that they are trying to grow the music market. They see it as an opportunity, a way to create an entirely new segment of the market. The guys at the labels seem to see it as a zero-sum game. Either Apple wins or they win.
This just shows that if an industry group (effectively a cartel as you said, despite protestations to the contrary from other people on Slashdot) is too inflexible and gets locked into a business model that is rapidly becoming outmoded, all they can do is fight a rearguard action until they are slowly but surely eliminated by new market forces.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Agreed; but with on-line sales, this has the potential to be a major source of revenue. I refer you to Wired's excellent article about the "Long Tail", which was previously covered in Slashdot. Without spending a lot of time, I would trust that the implications of this are obvious to anyone who has read Lessig's discussions of copyright getting "eternity on the installment plan", and Spider Robinson's "Melancholy Elephants" : the enjoyment of music in modern society is in for a major change unprecedented in history due to the diminished information costs of modern computer search aggregation techniques.
Adding the ability to have such a "bargain bin" to iTunes might be a good thing for everyone... at least until creativity runs out.
They are not concerned with expanding the volume of music sold. [...] Apple has the right idea, in that they are trying to grow the music market.
Also, agreed. More exactly, I believe that Steve Jobs has a better understanding of the elasticity of the demand curve, and that there will be more money made at lower prices. But you're right, far to many of the studio executives think that "we want to make more money" means "we want to be able to raise prices."
It might be interesting for someone to do a study to actually measure the elasticity of the demand curve, and try to determine where songs "should" be priced. However, doing so would be a non-trivial experiment to design and perfom.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.