Real just can't seem to figure it out. When they first opened their whole "Helix Player" project, they locked everyone out of the "Open Source" source code unless you signed an NDA. They fixed that after they figured out what a problem it was.
Even worse, they launched the Helix website with nothing there except a blurb saying that it would be coming soon. That sort of dissipated most of the momentum they'd built up by announcing it to the Open Source community.
Believe it or not, I really like Real Player for streaming content. The problem is that their execs just don't "get it". They can't present a unified marketing front, and it IS killing them. Even worse, they continually lose customer goodwill by installing spyware (now fixed) and intentionally hiding the link to download the free RealPlayer (not fixed).
Now they're off trying to steal Apple's thunder with a format that the market doesn't want, and no integrated media center to compete with.
"Load gun. Point at foot. Pull trigger. Repeat.", should be their motto.
That's an excellent point. I've always thought of my Clie as being a lot like the PADDs on Star Trek. The only thing that's been missing has been access to a "library computer". WiFi on the Palm platform could really be of assistance in making business information easily accessible. Lord knows that "windows shared file servers" don't help worth a damn.
Cell access to the Internet has been available on the Palms for years. Yet none of the things you've mentioned have really combined to make the Palm a good wireless platform.
No, but you seem quite willing to unequivocally state that economies of scale make it impossible for them to do so.
No, I'm just saying that Apple's decisions are understandable. Making a profit off of a large number of individuals is a VERY difficult thing to do. It's not a risk that Apple needs to take, so they don't.
Why do you keep assuming that Apple would provide the same quality of service to individual artists with no track record as they do to labels?
In this case I'm not. Every time you involve a human into the process, the costs go up substantially. After credit card fees and the amount that Apple sends to the artist, Apple may not make more than 5-10 cents per sale. At 10 cents a sale, you're going to have to sell at least 20-40 copies to cover the 15 minutes it takes for an $8/hr support person to answer their question.
What do you suppose happens when an unknown developer with a free ADC account has a support request?
I suppose that Apple has already made significant margins off of his purchase of a Mac, and will make more money off of his OS X upgrade purchases, then will make even more money from all the users who flock to their platform because of the software that the developer wrote.
which sits in the input queue until the intern assigned to handling unknown artists gets around to pulling it up and checking it before passing it on to the iTMS.
Which again involves a human. We'll again assume that he's paid $8/hr, but we'll lower the time to respond to 10 minutes. This tacks another 2-4 sales per song onto the break even costs.
I do have to acknowledge that you have helped me come to this realization, and I have to thank you for that.
Except that your PowerBook supports 802.11a and 802.11g. According to the blurb, this card only supports 802.11b. I wonder why they'd choose a (relatively) dead standard like that?
This is really, really cool! Now I can... erm... well... Hotsync without a cradle! Yeah, that's it!
Joking aside, anyone have any practical uses for such a gadget? In my experience, networking Palm Pilots hasn't helped them do much more. Sure, you can do WAP type stuff, but so can your cell phone.
that guy has been ranting and cursing out everyone since he got online.
Wasn't that how Jobs originally built Apple? I think he's been downgraded to "serious pain in the ass". While I don't agree with the pressure he put on the original Mac developers, there is something to be said for someone who can be a bit more forceful. I can almost guarantee that the iPod wouldn't have succeeded so well if Jobs hadn't been such a PITA about all the minor details.
1. Because this is Apple's product, not the developer's product. Site's like Apple's software listing or VersionTracker are mixed bags when it comes to the quality of the merchandise. With iTunes, Apple is able to provide consistent quality across the platform.
2. Can you unequivocally state that Apple will make more money from independent artists (many of whom are really just garage bands) than they would put into developing and managing an interface for musicians? Not to mention the customer goodwill lost if poor "music" begins polluting Apple's platform!
3. Hidden costs. Let's say that Apple requires the CD cover for the album (which they currently do). Responding to ONE support request of, "but I don't have a CD cover" would easily eat away any profits that Apple might have made off of that artist. Taking it further, an artist might upload an inappropriate image for the cover (perhaps as a placeholder, or perhaps the artist thought it was cool) and suddenly Apple finds itself spending money on a public relations nightmare. Sure, they might have pulled the image, but that doesn't stop every news source from reporting it as "a threat to our children!"
Look, you can argue this until you're blue in the face. But Apple's decisions fall in line with keeping quality high while exercising the economics of scale. If you don't like it, create a competing platform.
most of the salesguys are happy with MSFT's support and wouldn't want to rock the boat.
Understandable. Microsoft tends to respond to dissenters by cutting them off completely. Not a good situation to get into if you're already making money.
What kind of resources do they provide? If you could quantify what Microsoft does, perhaps you could suggest as much to Novell? Just a thought, anyway.
From the article: "One final point to note is that Newham will be using Internet Explorer. Steel explained that this is because Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns."
One has to wonder if they're actually being serious here.
Apple manages to deal with developers on a 1:1 basis without their costs skyrocketing.
Ok, I'm going to have to go on a tangent for a minute and ask, "What the hell are you talking about?" Apple is not a bottleneck for developers. They provide an OS and tools, and the developers find their own pipeline. If Apple treated every developer as a consulting company producing software directly for Apple, then their costs would definitely skyrocket!
Also, I thought you were talking about automating the relationship management. Not the importing of albums and songs.
I am talking about business relationships. Someone has to work out the details of how those songs will get delivered to Apple, on what timeframe they have to be delivered, and if Apple has the facilities to support their methodology.
I'm sure they're using "lots of automation" there now
I'm sure they do. That doesn't prevent Apple from having to review and organize the materials and data being delivered. I have several "automated feeds" that I currently manage at my company. I'd dread the idea of having to manage thousands of those feeds.
Basically, what I'm referring to is the law of diminishing returns. If Apple adds a large number of low profit relationships to their platform, they're going to see less and less return, and hidden costs will creep in. Here's the modern variant of the law that pertains to this situation.
I'm thinking that the idea is to build something that works like the news broadcasts in Babylon 5. You watch your news stream like you do today, but occasional "hot links" will be overlaid to take you to a "more info" website.
Personally, I'm not so sure about the idea. Television works by turning your brain off. The Internet works by turning your brain on (or at least the semblance of a brain that some people seem to carry). As with most situations where things are mixed, I fear you'll end up with the worst of the two instead of the best of the two.
If Apple is doing production work then their costs are per-song, and if they are not doing production work what are their "relationship costs"?
Apple has to assign resources to manage each label. That includes talking with the labels about what's going on with iTunes, managing payments, setting up a method for receiving masters, verifying that complete information is provided, etc. There's a lot of work and expense in managing business relationships. That's why direct customer relationships tend to be as automated as possible.
And what do you mean by a "drop in quality"?
In a completely automated situation Apple could no longer control what gets added to iTunes. Thus:
1. Inappropriate music or audio files may be uploaded or mislabeled. 2. Files could contain incomplete information. 3. Recording masters submitted could be very poor.
I think you misunderstand. Apple has costs associated per relationship. i.e. Each label or audiobook publisher needs relationship management and support. Supporting individual artists would be too expensive for Apple. They could solve the problem with lots of automation, but that could result in a drop in quality.
How would an independant band get on iTunes? All I can find on Apple's site is "If you are not currently a signed iTunes label, but would like to be considered, please email us to request an application." which is hardly encouraging.
Apple put out an invitation to many indie labels several months ago. I assume that they all have the necessary contacts to work with Apple at this point. The one thing Apple won't do is work with individual artists. This is understandable, as it would cost Apple more in supporting them than they make off of their songs.
The problem with $0.99 a song is that the artist gets $0.05 out of it.
Agreed. But lowering it to $0.50 means that that the artist gets $0.025 per song. So there's little point (from the artist's point of view) to lowering the price.
You have to treat the core of the problem, not the symtoms.
You really think that 99 cents is the fair market value? Do you really think that in a fair uncontrolled market that 99 cents would be the happy place that supply and demand meet? The music industry has already been convicted of price fixing and they haven't changed anything. People pay 99 cents because the only other choice is illegal or questionably legal methods.
Oh for crying out loud:
Expense Per Sale = (Marketing Cost * Market Reach / Marketing Response + Distribution Overhead) / Units Sold
Profit = Price > Expense Per Sale Loss = Price < Expense Per Sale
It's not that hard to figure out. The music companies spend money on advertising to make money. There's just one catch. In the music industry, they charge the cost of marketing back to the musician. So by demanding lower costs on songs, you're effectively bankrupting the very musicians you claim to be supporting! So, yes. 99 cents is probably fair market value. Besides, Apple set the cost, not the record labels.
Personally, I wish that Congress would pass a law making the chargeback scheme of the labels illegal. Not paying out money until profits are made is one thing, but why should the artist accept fiscal responsibility for a campaign he has no control over? Especially when you consider the percentages the labels' take for their "marketing service".
Slashdot Mirror
Real just can't seem to figure it out. When they first opened their whole "Helix Player" project, they locked everyone out of the "Open Source" source code unless you signed an NDA. They fixed that after they figured out what a problem it was.
Even worse, they launched the Helix website with nothing there except a blurb saying that it would be coming soon. That sort of dissipated most of the momentum they'd built up by announcing it to the Open Source community.
Believe it or not, I really like Real Player for streaming content. The problem is that their execs just don't "get it". They can't present a unified marketing front, and it IS killing them. Even worse, they continually lose customer goodwill by installing spyware (now fixed) and intentionally hiding the link to download the free RealPlayer (not fixed).
Now they're off trying to steal Apple's thunder with a format that the market doesn't want, and no integrated media center to compete with.
"Load gun. Point at foot. Pull trigger. Repeat.", should be their motto.
Zoom in on large building and cue sinister music.
Switch to close-up of the eeevile chopper about to make its attack run.
Suddenly, the chopper swoops in with death defying speed!
Closer and closer it gets to the building! We see the people inside running in terror as they notice the chopper!
The chopper closes the distance, readies itself for impact, and...
Bounces off harmlessly.
Guess they should have built it a bit bigger, huh?
Even if we assume that it's real, "flying" might a bit generous. It's more like "aimlessly bouncing through the air".
I'm thinking they'd go over extremely well as conference giveaways and kids toys. i.e. These are WAY better than the Earth Yo-Yo balls!
That's an excellent point. I've always thought of my Clie as being a lot like the PADDs on Star Trek. The only thing that's been missing has been access to a "library computer". WiFi on the Palm platform could really be of assistance in making business information easily accessible. Lord knows that "windows shared file servers" don't help worth a damn.
Cell access to the Internet has been available on the Palms for years. Yet none of the things you've mentioned have really combined to make the Palm a good wireless platform.
No, but you seem quite willing to unequivocally state that economies of scale make it impossible for them to do so.
;-)
:-)
No, I'm just saying that Apple's decisions are understandable. Making a profit off of a large number of individuals is a VERY difficult thing to do. It's not a risk that Apple needs to take, so they don't.
Why do you keep assuming that Apple would provide the same quality of service to individual artists with no track record as they do to labels?
In this case I'm not. Every time you involve a human into the process, the costs go up substantially. After credit card fees and the amount that Apple sends to the artist, Apple may not make more than 5-10 cents per sale. At 10 cents a sale, you're going to have to sell at least 20-40 copies to cover the 15 minutes it takes for an $8/hr support person to answer their question.
What do you suppose happens when an unknown developer with a free ADC account has a support request?
I suppose that Apple has already made significant margins off of his purchase of a Mac, and will make more money off of his OS X upgrade purchases, then will make even more money from all the users who flock to their platform because of the software that the developer wrote.
This is the house that Jack built...
which sits in the input queue until the intern assigned to handling unknown artists gets around to pulling it up and checking it before passing it on to the iTMS.
Which again involves a human. We'll again assume that he's paid $8/hr, but we'll lower the time to respond to 10 minutes. This tacks another 2-4 sales per song onto the break even costs.
I do have to acknowledge that you have helped me come to this realization, and I have to thank you for that.
Glad to be of service.
I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. :-)
Except that your PowerBook supports 802.11a and 802.11g. According to the blurb, this card only supports 802.11b. I wonder why they'd choose a (relatively) dead standard like that?
This is really, really cool! Now I can... erm... well... Hotsync without a cradle! Yeah, that's it!
Joking aside, anyone have any practical uses for such a gadget? In my experience, networking Palm Pilots hasn't helped them do much more. Sure, you can do WAP type stuff, but so can your cell phone.
that guy has been ranting and cursing out everyone since he got online.
Wasn't that how Jobs originally built Apple? I think he's been downgraded to "serious pain in the ass". While I don't agree with the pressure he put on the original Mac developers, there is something to be said for someone who can be a bit more forceful. I can almost guarantee that the iPod wouldn't have succeeded so well if Jobs hadn't been such a PITA about all the minor details.
Here's a link to the story in normal colors. There's a reason why some colors are considered "primaries" and others "secondaries".
Why should music be any different?
1. Because this is Apple's product, not the developer's product. Site's like Apple's software listing or VersionTracker are mixed bags when it comes to the quality of the merchandise. With iTunes, Apple is able to provide consistent quality across the platform.
2. Can you unequivocally state that Apple will make more money from independent artists (many of whom are really just garage bands) than they would put into developing and managing an interface for musicians? Not to mention the customer goodwill lost if poor "music" begins polluting Apple's platform!
3. Hidden costs. Let's say that Apple requires the CD cover for the album (which they currently do). Responding to ONE support request of, "but I don't have a CD cover" would easily eat away any profits that Apple might have made off of that artist. Taking it further, an artist might upload an inappropriate image for the cover (perhaps as a placeholder, or perhaps the artist thought it was cool) and suddenly Apple finds itself spending money on a public relations nightmare. Sure, they might have pulled the image, but that doesn't stop every news source from reporting it as "a threat to our children!"
Look, you can argue this until you're blue in the face. But Apple's decisions fall in line with keeping quality high while exercising the economics of scale. If you don't like it, create a competing platform.
most of the salesguys are happy with MSFT's support and wouldn't want to rock the boat.
Understandable. Microsoft tends to respond to dissenters by cutting them off completely. Not a good situation to get into if you're already making money.
What kind of resources do they provide? If you could quantify what Microsoft does, perhaps you could suggest as much to Novell? Just a thought, anyway.
From the article: "One final point to note is that Newham will be using Internet Explorer. Steel explained that this is because Microsoft is very serious about addressing security concerns."
One has to wonder if they're actually being serious here.
Apple manages to deal with developers on a 1:1 basis without their costs skyrocketing.
Ok, I'm going to have to go on a tangent for a minute and ask, "What the hell are you talking about?" Apple is not a bottleneck for developers. They provide an OS and tools, and the developers find their own pipeline. If Apple treated every developer as a consulting company producing software directly for Apple, then their costs would definitely skyrocket!
Also, I thought you were talking about automating the relationship management. Not the importing of albums and songs.
I am talking about business relationships. Someone has to work out the details of how those songs will get delivered to Apple, on what timeframe they have to be delivered, and if Apple has the facilities to support their methodology.
I'm sure they're using "lots of automation" there now
I'm sure they do. That doesn't prevent Apple from having to review and organize the materials and data being delivered. I have several "automated feeds" that I currently manage at my company. I'd dread the idea of having to manage thousands of those feeds.
Basically, what I'm referring to is the law of diminishing returns. If Apple adds a large number of low profit relationships to their platform, they're going to see less and less return, and hidden costs will creep in. Here's the modern variant of the law that pertains to this situation.
On second thought, it sounds more like a TV interface for files from the internet. *shrug* Not quite sure how that's supposed to work.
I'm thinking that the idea is to build something that works like the news broadcasts in Babylon 5. You watch your news stream like you do today, but occasional "hot links" will be overlaid to take you to a "more info" website.
Personally, I'm not so sure about the idea. Television works by turning your brain off. The Internet works by turning your brain on (or at least the semblance of a brain that some people seem to carry). As with most situations where things are mixed, I fear you'll end up with the worst of the two instead of the best of the two.
If Apple is doing production work then their costs are per-song, and if they are not doing production work what are their "relationship costs"?
Apple has to assign resources to manage each label. That includes talking with the labels about what's going on with iTunes, managing payments, setting up a method for receiving masters, verifying that complete information is provided, etc. There's a lot of work and expense in managing business relationships. That's why direct customer relationships tend to be as automated as possible.
And what do you mean by a "drop in quality"?
In a completely automated situation Apple could no longer control what gets added to iTunes. Thus:
1. Inappropriate music or audio files may be uploaded or mislabeled.
2. Files could contain incomplete information.
3. Recording masters submitted could be very poor.
I think you misunderstand. Apple has costs associated per relationship. i.e. Each label or audiobook publisher needs relationship management and support. Supporting individual artists would be too expensive for Apple. They could solve the problem with lots of automation, but that could result in a drop in quality.
How would an independant band get on iTunes? All I can find on Apple's site is "If you are not currently a signed iTunes label, but would like to be considered, please email us to request an application." which is hardly encouraging.
Apple put out an invitation to many indie labels several months ago. I assume that they all have the necessary contacts to work with Apple at this point. The one thing Apple won't do is work with individual artists. This is understandable, as it would cost Apple more in supporting them than they make off of their songs.
You are too far gone to even attempt talking to. Sorry.
Ah, I see. This is how they teach critical thinking these days. i.e. Ignore it and it will go away.
Have fun muttering to yourself "he doesn't have a point, he doesn't have a point..."
The problem with $0.99 a song is that the artist gets $0.05 out of it.
Agreed. But lowering it to $0.50 means that that the artist gets $0.025 per song. So there's little point (from the artist's point of view) to lowering the price.
You have to treat the core of the problem, not the symtoms.
Oh for crying out loud:It's not that hard to figure out. The music companies spend money on advertising to make money. There's just one catch. In the music industry, they charge the cost of marketing back to the musician. So by demanding lower costs on songs, you're effectively bankrupting the very musicians you claim to be supporting! So, yes. 99 cents is probably fair market value. Besides, Apple set the cost, not the record labels.
Personally, I wish that Congress would pass a law making the chargeback scheme of the labels illegal. Not paying out money until profits are made is one thing, but why should the artist accept fiscal responsibility for a campaign he has no control over? Especially when you consider the percentages the labels' take for their "marketing service".