Slashdot Mirror
Apple Sells 1 Million Videos in Under 20 Days
olddotter writes "Apple has sold over 1 million videos through iTunes since the release of the Video iPod service. Personally I am surprised by this success, it raises many questions. Will this encourage more people to put their video content on the iTunes store? Is there a vast market for cheaper stuff at reduced prices? Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?"
Well considering you don't have to acually watch the video. Why buy the song and video seperately?
Am no fek Buddhist, but this is enlightenment.
If they offered more than what they have, I imagine they would have made this point much faster. I would have bought stuff, but they didn't have any shows I actually wanted to see.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
Now I wish that they would start selling the videos in stores OTHER THAN the US....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?"
Shelf life - even the greatest video will probably only be played a few times at most, while you might listen to a song hundreds of times over the years.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
once the gadget whores have filled their video ipods up, they will move onto something else
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Is this alot of videos? I mean, is this more or less than the number of video iPods sold. If its alot less than thats no great feat, if its double, well thats not a great feat either. Even if Apple was pocketing the whole $1.99 thats only 1.99 million dollars. That's not news by Apples standards.
Also, anyone know the number of songs sold that week?
Because music has far more inherent replay value than video.
Everytime some slashdork bitches about how a CD costs $20 for 60 minutes while a DVD costs $20 for 120 minutes or more and what a ripoff a CD is, I want to slap them silly; the two things have nothing in common other than size and shape. Unless you're some obsessive weirdo, I doubt you'll watch the same movie a couple of times a week right after buying it like most people do with an album.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
In the world of wasting yer money on stupid, ephemeral stuff for digital gizmos, video on iPod doesn't even make it to the semifinals; at least you get to watch a 40-minute, commercial-free TV show for your cash.
Be surprised that we're so happy to part with our money for valueless things, perhaps--but don't be surprised that the iPod video is successful at this game...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
This could usher in a whole new era for TV, and I wouldn't miss cable or satellite one bit.
Which is exactly why it's only a matter of time before there's a huge backlash from these content distributors, much like the music industry is already against iTunes. Now, cable and satellite companies will be joining the fight. It's in their best interest to beat down this new method of content distribution for TV.
Because most tv shows are 90% dialog.
Because you can use it on a train or airplane.
Because when you connect it to a TV it's fine.
Because you can pull something out of your pocket and show it to your friends.
Will this encourage more people to put their video content on the iTunes store?
Of course it will. There is a market for video content; people will see this is another avenue of making money, getting more exposure, etc.
Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?
People will listen to a popular song many times a day. People don't do the same with TV/movies. The entertainment value of most TV shows and movies is gone after 1 viewing. The entertainment value of music seems to carry on much longer.
"Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?"
Because video is typically only viewed a few times. Music has much more longevity. You get much more in the long run out of a $1 song then you do a $1 video.
This is such a new technology/distribution medium, and iPods have such a big market share, that I'm sure they could find a million people to spend 2 bucks just to try the thing out and see what it is like. I dont even have a video iPod, but was thinking of buying an episode of "Lost" to watch on my Mac since 1. I've never seen it on regular TV and 2. was curious about download speed, picture quality etc.
Apparently you didn't read the earlier article about the SBC exec. You should go read it. He is pissed about VOIP and other such things because it hurts his sense of money.
Or something to that effect.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
It's very common these days that good series are cancelled in middle of a season. iTunes TV-series sales will make a change to that. When new series launches in the USA, it only has about 300 million potential viewers, but when the same show launces on iTunes, it has about two billion potential viewers.
Many people don't yet even realize what this might do to the industry. There will become more and more scifi series, because TV-companies don't have to rely on US Scifi fans only. And that's just the beginning. Soon you'll able to order tv-series like you order magazines now. Fans might even start to have their own tailored episodes or even whole series.
I'll sincerely welcome iTunes. It will change the industry - mark my words. Difference to other Video-on-demand services is that iTunes is 'the standard'. It's safe to buy there and you don't have to worry about having to deal with some strange proprietary DRM software.
I'm depressed about this.. I wanted this to flop so that Apple and the studios would be forced to give us more content, higher res, and less DRM... And I'm an Apple shareholder!
Because, up until now, the studios had given us so much full-quality digital non-DRM encumbered content?
Please.
When they were already providing essentially *no* content, how would the first major commercial offering of such a service flopping "force" them to provide *more* content?
Further, you think that they'll provide content with "less" DRM? (Are you implying you'll accept DRM, if there's "less" of it? Or do you really mean no DRM? Because if that's what you mean, you'll NEVER get it.)
As to higher res, there's a problem here other than the content providers or Apple. And it's just a little one called "bandwidth". Before you go off telling me that you want to download your 1080i movies, even H.264 compressed, please explain how, even on the highest bandwidth home broadband connections generally available in the US, a 6 hour download jibes with Apple's strategy.
Never underestimate of the power of stupid anonymous coward posts on Slashdot.
Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?
Because most of us can only stand to watch the best of videos three times at the most, but can listen to the best of songs hundreds of times.
Which is exactly why it's only a matter of time before there's a huge backlash from these content distributors
Well, they are adept in hurting their own intersts.
Funny thing is, they've fought against PVRs, and now most of them even offer one as part of the subscription.
The broadcast, cable and satellite networks very often finance the programming they use, I bet they could stand to make more from subscriptions + video sales than they do with just subscriptions. They resisted putting their shows on DVD, but then caved in and many of them are making a lot of money doing so, be the shows new or old. I don't see why it is sensible for them to reject a deal to get listed in iTunes. They'll make more money (net!) per episode than with DVD sales, and only have a little bit of preparation and encoding work. I hope that this untapped potential gets exploited, though I'd prefer not to use iTunes as the conduit. I've heard it said that making a show like Enterprise could cost about $0.25 (US) per episode per viewer.
At the moment I pay £5.99 for the privilege of watching 3 dvds a month, or £2.50 per dvd hire from the local shop. I'd be delighted to pay £1.99 for stuff that I want to see whenever I want, my only option at the moment is to break the law for bittorrents which never seem to work anyway. I don't even agree with piracy, but sometimes I just wanted to watch stuff without waiting for the TV stations here to deign to show them again. If I can pay £1.99 a time for stuff that I want to watch ad-free at my convenience I'll be biting Steve Job's hand off. I doubt I'm alone in this.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
How much would you pay to go to a movie? How much would you pay for a concert?
For some reason, music is worth more than movies. I'm not saying that I understand why, I'm just saying that it's deeper than just replay value.
What's really interesting about this article is this quote:
"Selling 1 million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal video downloads," Steve Jobs, chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods."
Interpret that how you will, but I take it to mean apple wants to offer a larger number of TV shows for download to your Mac or PC.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
My first purchases from iTunes were this past week, when I bought some episodes of Lost. Slow day at work, no iPod, just my 21" monitor and my headphones. Thanks, Apple, problem solved.
What does this say? It says that videos are more appealing for purchase than music for some people. And it says that full-screen Quicktime on a 21" monitor is a fine substitute for an iPod with a 2-inch screen.
ESPN - Sports - Sports highlights podcast - ESPN Classic - Greatest Sports moments ever. ESPN - "Pregame on your iPod!" - download sports highlighs from both teams, exclusive interviews, only 5$ a week - get it now, ONLY on your iPod!! Anyone else see a whole world of ideas?
Except that Lost DVDs aren't available until after the season ends. An episode is available on iTunes the day after it's broadcast. There's a certain kind of TV show that generates a lot of buzz, and people want to watch them at about the same time as their friends. Waiting six months or longer (some TV shows don't make it to DVD for years) is not an acceptable option.
The RIAA has kept the prices artifically high and you go along with it.
What does "artificially high" mean?
If we are "going along with it," that means this is a price the market will bear, and thus the prices are not too high. Incidentally, music CD's used to cost more. When they were new things, they were regularly in the $20's. Then it was high teens. Now it is low to high teens, and sometimes below that.
Also consider inflation, and you will see the actual price of a CD has indeed come down quite a bit over the years.
You probably also think gas prices in towns affected by hurricanes should be kept as low as they were before hurricanes, thereby creating gas shortages, rather than letting supply and demand to its thang, increasing the cost of a good that is in short supply to naturally curb hoarding.
The market is what it is. If you think CDs are "too expensive," don't buy them. If enough people agree, they'll come down in price or be replaced by similar technology that is less expensive.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
So overall, I would say that it is for what music lacks that makes me see it as more valuable.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
But equally importantly, buying things on dvd requires me to either physically travel to a store just to do so, or to order it and wait days or weeks for it to be delivered....I then have to putz around with physical discs....So I have to dig out the box of dvds, open up the ginormous packaging, pull out the booklet in the back, and look through it to figure out which disc that's on, then put that in, and remember to take it out and put it away later....
All very true. However, the same reasons are why I simply downloaded all of Buffy . . . and proper dvd-rips result in far better quality than the ones that iTMS offers, and then I have all the extras and commentary tracks . . . but you're right, DVDs are inconvenient. Which is why I still have DVD rips of the shows I actually own on DVD (whether I downloaded them before, or made them myself afterwards).
I'll add some things to the list of inconveniences of DVDs: load times and random pauses/silences when I'd rather things just be playing already (once you go through the motions of popping in the DVD, you have to wait while the menu loads, then go to the episode in question, then click "play" or etc depending exactly on the DVD), and stuff like having to start an episode/movie over again most of the time if you want to switch to the commentary track.
But there you have it: some sort of completely on-computer (should I just say PC? Apple'll be Intel soon anyways, will we get to simplify things then?) version works better for accessing than the rather clumsy setup of DVDs, but with the iTMS versions you don't get all the extras and you don't get the quality. Personally, since it's usually all the extras on the DVDs that push me over the edge into buying them (I've usually seen the TV show or movie before already), I would never bother buying the costs-as-much-or-more-but-is-stripped-down iTMS versions, but at the same time I would probably buy many more DVDs if it was less of a pain to rip them to my computer for easy access (it's a price one has to pay to be able to do something like, say, queue up a slew of episodes at once, but still, it's annoying that companies are so gung-ho on restricting what legitimate customers can do with their purchases... yeah, I understand the fear of piracy, but it doesn't hamper pirates much at all, there's always someone out there willing to take the time and effort to copy them (and no protections have worked forever yet, nor ever really will) and then they just spread everywhere from there to anyone feeling like downloading them, the customer is inconvenienced far out of proportion with any actual piracy-prevention).
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly some big advantages (as you note, good parent, you can get the shows the day after it airs, and can download them quickly without ever leaving home), but in the name of convenience it does leave some things behind, some of the things that are big selling points for DVDs (extras, quality, etc).
I won't bother going into any "actually having packaging" arguments, since that's all personal preference (and I don't always buy into it anyways), but it IS nice having copies that aren't on your computer already, I should point out . . . even with 600GBs, I certainly don't have unlimited space here on my computer, and it's nice to be able to just store away high-quality copies somewhere else if you're not going to be watching it for awhile or something.
So I guess my arguments can be summed up with the following: iTMS vids miss out on some things, DVDs are inconvenient, it would be better if there was legal ways to download something more akin to scene retail rips and/or copy legitimately owned DVDs without the disks acting as if you're a criminal every step of the way. But towards getting to this (probably somewhat naive, definitely idealistic) state of media, yeah, I'll give you that iTMS videos are a good step in the right direction. They're just not for me, at least not yet.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
My wife is a musician who self-produces her albums. She's now making more money through a handful of songs on Itunes than by selling her CDs.
Now, that is what the record companies fear. What if the big names started doing that?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You make the same mistake everyone does in tying the sucess of video on ITMS to the video capabile iPod. They really have little relation as anyone can buy and enjoy a video from a store without having a video-enabled iPod.
So ignore the history of portable video devices, and instead start thinking of what is really improtant here - not the iPod with video at all, that's just a footnote to backdooring real on-demand TV by a major player. If enough shows are offered, and you only watch a few shows here and there... why even have a cable subscription at all? That's what is going on here.
Even Apple doesn't make a big deal about video support on the iPods, noting that they added it to see what happens. Personally I could care not a whit for video support in a portable device but I am interested in online video and have bought a few things there already.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The record industry will continue to exist based on one simple principle. It's not wealth. It's fame. The labels are fame machines. So long as musicians have egos, there will always be labels.
So many questions about why people would want to play video on a tiny screen. Why would they? I have no idea because I bought the video to play on either my computer monitor or TV! People who think the rapid sales in video are bolstered entirely by the new iPod are out to lunch and not putting on the long-term thinking caps.
Vidoe capabile iPods are a non-story and a gimmick. The foot in the door to FINALLY buy TV on a per-episode basis is the topic at hand, and a far more interesting discussion.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I live in the UK and it's impossible to watch any music channel (if there's any point watching anyway) without seeing adverts for the latest offering from the Crazy Frog. It's the single most annoying ringtone in the whole entire world and IMO, Mr Thermo-nuke would be more suited than Mr Sledgehammer.
Ding ding ding ding bah bah bah... need I say more?
Top ten? It was at number one for several weeks!
We may as well just cancel civilisation, it's clearly a failed experiment.