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.
Imagine if they had some content besides a few television shows and videos...
~~ What's stopping you?
I would DEFINATELY download TV episodes and movies for $1.99 ANYDAY over music tracks for $.99
Even when iTunes first came out I thought that was a bit pricey and that the price would eventually drop. Doesn't appear to be the case. But $1.99 for tv shows seems to be a good deal as long as they cut the commercials out, or at least most of them.
This could usher in a whole new era for TV, and I wouldn't miss cable or satellite one bit.
You're nothing; like me.
Something tells me that Kevin Pollak is owed a royalty somewhere.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's my (utterly unsubstantiated) belief that Front Row will appear in iLife 06, and that then a Mac Mini playing these videos on a TV will start to make quite a lot of sense.
Cheers,
Ian
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/
Will it be possible for comments to continue this decaying monologue of uncertainty and doubt? Will I be surprised? Should all comments not related to the article but the amusing questioning dialogue be posted herein?
somebody posted this last week about making old 50s shows available for cheap. Sounds promising to me as a way of preserving the early days of TV. Heck, I'd pay a buck for old Zachary creature features.
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
I guess pretty much for the same reason that you are willing to pay more for a movie sound track CD than for the DVD of the movie itself. The RIAA has kept the prices artifically high and you go along with it.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Well now that a company is offering a completely legal and conveniant service, I am perfectly willing to pay for it. When there is nothing on TV, I would love nothing more then to be able to quickly download an episode for a past show that I havn't seen before without having to go through the various bit torrent sites.
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.
Because you're an idiot. Next question?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
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.
Small video screen, less space than nomad, lame!
So what does this mean? Who knows, but it seems as if the videos are really damn popular. I'd kill, however, to see which ones were more popular than others...
I think what'd be the real killer app for mobile video would be shorts like comedy, commercials, trailers, etc.
Apple are you listening? Use what you have already, most movies push trailers, and most commercial creators would DIE to get their bits on the iPod, and there're some totally awesome commercials that are pieces of art in their own right! Imagine a vid-cast of bits from The Daily Show, or a 5 minute part of a standup routine, too.. great for showing people at lunch/etc.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"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.
Once the content gets in there I'll be buying video from iTunes. That is assuming of course that the prices stay close to what I'm seeing right now. This fits in good with my desire to buy seasons worth of some shows on DVD but only a handful of episodes where other shows are concerned.
I look at South Park, Dead Like Me, and my Battlestar Galactica fix and I say "Buy the season on DVD". My wife wants Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons 1-6 and DVD is the way to go.
I look at Star Trek Deep Space 9 and I say "Got to get me some DVD's.....HOLY SHIT CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT PARAMOUNT WANTS FOR THAT? MIGHTY PROUD OF THE STAR TREK AREN'T WE GUYS?"
Then I think about it and there probably weren't 10 episodes of DS9 I really want anyway. Maybe 10 if I push it. 20 bucks for those 10 episodes and screw the rest of it because it wasn't all that good anyway? I'm in.
Of course IF Paramount ever lets them sell episodes of Star Trek (and flavor) on iTunes they'll probably demand that they sell for $9.99 each or some insane amount of money that will screw the whole deal up anyway.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
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.
Really, there is no downside with the way Apple has handled the beginning of a transition into video. It seems unlikely that anyone planning to purchase an iPod would say, "wait a minute, I get a bigger, much better screen, larger storage, and thinner iPod for the same money as the old iPod--no way, I don't want that." Even if you exclude video capability, the new iPod has other features alone which might have ticked up the numbers. So, its hardly a surprise that Apple is happy with the results. I hope Apple is able to announce, before Thanksgiving, some big deal with at least one studio, for more content (e.g. Warner Bros., Paramount, etc.) which will include real movies. That will be the kicker for outstanding sales of the video iPod for Christmas.
do.what.promptcmds
I'd say a full half of the gadgets I buy are shiny, new and fun... for the first month. Then they're relegated to "eBay" pile. I'll be more interested in seeing how their sales fare in six months when having the latest teenage singer shaking her bottom in your hand is no longer enough to make you the "cool guy/gal" in school. I tried video on my iPAQ and trust me, there are better, more entertaining ways to go blind. Speaking which, time to go shave my palms.
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.
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.
I was on vacation in Europe this summer, and the people we were staying with had MTV on the television, and I am serious - maybe 80-90% of the ads were from a couple of different companies hawking mind bogglingly irritating ringtones. It was completely unbelievable. And it was always the SAME ONES over and over. Yikes.
Considering how much I DIDN'T want to buy any of them, the only conclusion I could come to was that I must be getting old.
Oh, and by the way, if you're in the US, like me, this is going to be how our TV is pretty soon too, since we're trying to play catch-up with just about every other country in the world in cell phone technology right now. Just you wait.
Doesn't the DRM prevent playing these things on anything other than an iPod or iTunes?
While I didn't get mine for the video capability, it turns out the screen is actually much more watchable than one would expect from the specs.
The image quality is quite high, and at arms length it's really not that much different than sitting across the room from a 20" or so screen.
While it won't be replacing my home theater any time soon, being able to watch a show or movie on a plane trip or whatever is a nice bonus.
Sure, there are better dedicated video players, but it's an Apples and oranges comparison. The iPod is still a music player primarily, with photo ability and video as nice bonuses. If video is what you see as a primary use for a device, look elsewhere, but for occasional viewing, it's more than adequate.
Same here. I thought you were supposed to be embarassed that your phone went off in a public place and disturbed everyone else. Hello? Vibrate feature? But no, every 12-yr-old hip-hopster gangsta-rapper wannabe just HAS to have his phone blast out the latest crap from M. C. Pee Pants whenever one of his "bitches" calls him.
Here's a tip: if I hear your phone sing (I use the term loosely) "pick up da phone, got some money comin' in" one more time, I'm going to introduce your phone to Mr. Sledgehammer. And then maybe your head, too. I figure I should get a medal for preventing all the crimes you were going to commit in the coming years.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
I think that most people who are surprised by this success aren't realizing that the majority of the population are not the slashdot nerd type. People want EASY downloads, sync and play with no hassles. They don't want Bittorrent downloads that they have to burn on to a memory stick and alter the video codec to perform on an incompatible processor. Sure, that's a made-up scenario but the point is that what most of you find easy to do on your computer is incomprehensible to the majority.
sig here
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.
for not capitilizating their assets. Open (the latest version of) Winamp. Open Open Media Library, click on "Winamp Video". You see 10000+ VCR quality music videos (1750 artists, top names). The same thing that APPLE is sucessfully selling at $2 a pop, AOL/TW has been giving away on Winamp for 5 years, except that Apple has a fraction of the # of videos.
If AOL/TW bothered to figure out how to make money, they would (at least) team with Apple to SELL this content (currently, they're only making a token effort to make money by showing an ad before playing videos..which is annoying and ineffective). If they were very wise, they'd turn around an Itunes like client and partner with Microsoft, Sony and other Apple competitors and CRUSH them.
I can't stand stupidity.
[rant done]
Sure, it doesn't have the storage space than an ipod does, but it costs half as much than an ipod, and the screen is *much* larger (4.3" 16:9 widescreen).
Half as much? The 30GB video iPod is $300, and the PSP is $250. How is that half?
The 60GB video iPod is $400. PSP is still $250. Again, not half.
Add a 1GB card for the PSP for approximately $100, and the PSP is more expensive than the 30 GB iPod and has 1/30 of the storage capacity. All of that for a bigger screen? Oh but you can buy the UMDs for $20 - 40. That's cost-effective.
I have a PSP, but I have it for games (which aren't much to talk about either, but I may get the GTA soon).
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.
I bought the first episodes of Lost to determine if I really wanted the DVD set (never having seen Lost apart from an episode somewhere in the middle that didn't really grab me). I do have an iPod but it's the first 5gb model with no video support at all (not that I care, having no desire to watch video on an iPod).
There's a lot of people around willing to buy video without an iPod. I doubt video purchases for iPods are even the majority of cases.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i think it's pretty obvious that most people who bought a video ipod are going to buy 1 video just to check it out. i know a guy that has bought every generation of ipod as soon as they were released (normal, mini, nano, video). he's never bought a song on itunes, but he did buy some pixar video just to see how the process worked.
if you threw out one video purchase for every one video ipod customer, i think the numbers might be a lot different. weren't a million nanos sold in a few weeks?
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!
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
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
Well, OK then...
Her name's Cathi Walkup and she sings Jazz. Check out "Hang Up And Drive"
My friend and I were denied just today when we applied for distribution through iTMS. No, we're not a major indie like Matador, but we're also not a bunch of yahoos making records in the garage. I'm not complaining, but self-publishing through iTMS is still not easy enough. Having said that, people in my situation can probably use CDBaby to get onto iTMS, which is exactly what Apple's rejection note said.
Frankly, most of the talented musicians are well...ugly. As one wit put it, rock and roll was created so that ugly guys could get laid. Given the postulation that talented musicians are ugly, why would I pay extra to get the video to go with the sound?
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
It probably is passable on an SDTV, but it looks absolutely awful on my 42" HD plasma. I know, I know--duh! But, seriously, iPod video is very close to unwatchable on a nice TV.
- Music Video - Michael Jackson - Thriller
- TV Show -
...And Found - Lost
- Movie - For the Birds - Pixar
- Music Video - Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
- TV Show - Man of Science, Man of Faith (Premiere) - Lost
- TV Show - They Asked Me Why I Believe in You - Desparate Housewives
- Music Video - Kanye West - Gold Digger
- Movie - Boundin' - Pixar
- Movie - Geri's Game - Pixar
- TV Show - Orientation - Lost
- TV Show - Everybody Hates Hugo - Lost
- TV Show - Adrift - Lost
- Music Video - Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
- TV Show - Malum - Night Stalker
- Music Video - La Tortura - Shakira & Alejandro Sanz
For those really interested, you can see the Top 100 Videos (requires iTunes).This sig donated to Pater. Long live
How can the ringtone sellers afford this you say? And how come MTV is up for sending them over and over again? Pretty simple - the ringtone sellers does not have to pay *anything* to have the advert played on MTV - however, MTV gets a percentage of the sales done within a specific timespan after the advert is sent. So, the more people buy ringtones, the more MTV makes together with the ringtone seller... The ringtone adverts are basically fillers - have a 30 second slot to fill between shows? Shove in the adverts twice to fill the time! If they sent the advert twice in a row, they essentially increases the timepan in which they earn money from the ringtone sellers. Pretty funky, eh?
Right, your insightful analysis correctly assumes that my time, just like yours, isn't worth anything.
Oh, wait.
Crazy Frog is the marketing title of a ring tone based on The Annoying Thing...