Excellent point. In a previous article about iTMS declining sales this year, they had a graph showing sales from the beginning of 2005 through summer 06. There was a HUGE spike through the fourth quarter of 05 - the first quarter of 06. After that sales did drop off a bit for the rest of 06, but they're still better than 05. I think you've got it pegged with people recieving iPods for christmas (originally I thought gift cards but apparently those don't count). Could it be these stories about declining sales are just a way to get iTunes in the news during the christmas season?
I agree, especially with your first point. Having no schedule sounds great, but what if you suddenly get a huge project dumped on you? No longer can you say, "My hours are 8-5, if they give me more work than I can do in those hours, they'll have to devote more resources to it." Suddenly you're on call, 24/7, 7 days a week. I hate being on call.
I also hate working on the phone. If someone calls me with a problem, I'll go through one or two obvious fixes, then when they (obviously) don't fix the problem, I'll say, "Hold on, I'll come over." Couldn't do that if I was following Dave Matthews around the country.
It sounds like a great idea for some jobs, but not mine (IT).
I don't understand the spin they're putting on this. According to the graph in TFA, sales dipped slightly in Q3 of last year, then skyrocketed through Q4-Q1 of this year. Through Q2-3 of this year, sales have stayed steady, but still WELL above last year's sales. If they jump again in Q4 and next year, they're growing at a ridiculous rate. I think the article is bending the numbers just a little bit when they say digital song sales are stalled for the first time since the ITMS launched.
My first gen (512MB) shuffle is still going strong, I don't remember ever having to avoid a firmware update. Of course there was a 6 month period where I didn't use it, maybe I lucked out!
They change the gameplay, but do they really improve upon it?
I've played EA's NHL titles far more than the Madden series, so I'll use that for my example. I loved NHL 2000. In my opinion, the title achieved perfection that year. Since then, each year has introduced a new gimmick and taken away something that I liked about the previous year. If they could just give me NHL 2000 with updated graphics and rosters, I'd be happy. I have yet to buy NHL 2007... I can't justify spending $50 for a roster update.
30 to 40 variables? He's considering a problem as complex as predicting the future, and he's maxing out at 40 variables? This guy is a quack!
I'd also like to know how they use this data. I mean, if it actually works and is used effectively, you're going to prevent murders, right? But if they prevent the murders, they have no proof that the "tagged" person was ever going to commit a murder, so how do they justify the extra attention given to that person? Plus anyone on probation who does commit a murder will presumably be the one who wasn't tagged, and therefor not watched as closely. So even if it works flawlessly, it will look like it failed unless they purposely let some murders occur to give them the statistics they need to prove the system works. Eesh.
It's amazing how many of you are defending flat out thievery. I mean, it's one thing to download some songs to listen to on your iPod, quite another to take songs which you have absolutely no right to and start selling them for profit. The balls of these guys to say, "Well we pay the Russian copyright organization, which has nothing to do with the RIAA, so we're going to sell RIAA music." It's ridiculous that they lasted so long!
I was skimming through the radio stations last night and I caught the end of an anti-drug commercial. It said "resist 'we' (peer pressure)" but for a moment I thought it was a Sony commercial saying "resist 'wii.'"
I've been seeing an awful lot of stories about second life lately. First it was businesses opening virtual stores, then the copybot and now this. Is it all coincidence, or has Linden Labs been pushing their marketing campaign into high gear?
Is Sony going to demand virtual DRM to protect their virtual content, and install a rootkit on the Second Life servers?
Seriously this is all very interesting, but I have to wonder how long it's going to last... will the graphics become outdated, will something new come along to replace it, or will people just lose interest?
Who else read slexchange.com as sexchange.com, and immediately wondered at sex changes becoming so popular in australia that the aussies had made a special tax category for them?
You know, this story is really convincing and emotional, and I was starting to think, "Yeah, that's what Dragonrealms was like for me in college!"
But then I realized, it's all about self control. I played MMORPGs a lot in college, but that's because I had a lot of free time in college. When I graduated and got a job, I limited myself to an hour a night on weeknights, so I wouldn't wind up playing until 2AM. Eventually I got into other things and stopped altogether because I no longer had time for it. These games can consume a lot of time, but only if you let them.
That girl dumped him because he spent too much time in the game. He stopped ALL of his other hobbies and he was staying up til 2AM on weeknights doing raids. He stopped before it ruined his life, but he was on track for a big crash.
Taking people to court isn't their fucking business model. I'm utterly sick of reading that it is. Their business model is selling copies of recorded works. Unfortunately, P2P has fucked that up.
Oh, so normally they would be promoting cds? I hear a lot more about them suing people. I don't see any positive promotion going on. I mean, I'm their target audience, you'd think if they were promoting their artists, I'd have heard about it.
If you love the "product" (music) so much, you'd be willing pay for it. Most downloaders don't, they use LimeWire and that is the end of it.
What are you basing this on? I do download stuff, I also buy stuff. We can sit here and make up numbers all day, but I buy new cds almost weekly. I don't think my download habits are hurting the RIAA very much.
What's unreasonable is the value the RIAA is placing on their plastic discs. They started charging $20 for an album, their sales inevitably declined, and coincidentally, they found something else to blame it on. Now they're bullying people into ridiculous settlements with threats of expensive court cases, because they know the average consumer can't afford a law team equal to their corporately sponsored one. How many cases have they actually taken to court? What's their track record when they do find someone willing to take it all the way, the RIGHT way, instead of settling with them? I think, in a case where the CREATORS and rightful owners of the art can't even agree on whether filesharing is good or bad for them, it's absolutely ludicrous to declare it shoplifting, illegal and immoral.
Taking people to court is not a good business model. They should find a way to make people want to buy the music through them, instead of downloading it. There are already plenty of incentives. CD-quality. Artwork. Extras packaged with the cd. Live music. The RIAA would rather indiscriminately sue people (people who may or may not have illegally downloaded their content, they don't really care). They cut corners in every case, attempting to force a big cash settlement rather than go through the proper channels. These bloodsucking lawyers only represent the greediest of artists: show me one independant musician who feels as if they deserve $1,000+ for every copy of their song they can find on a 13 year old kid's hard drive. If you manage to find one, I'll show you a thousand who WISH they could get their song spread freely on the internet.
Downloaders are customers. They are customers who love the product so much, they want to get their hands on as much of it as they can. They want rarities and live performances and content you can't buy. They want the cd before it is available in stores. And most frequent downloaders probably have larger-than-average collections of legitimately purchased music as well. People don't like the RIAA because they want to piss all over everything, and they want us to pay them to do it.
The whole industry needs to wake up. If they can't find a way to make a profit without suing their customers, they're in the wrong business. Plenty of people have proved you can be pro-filesharing and still make enough sales to own a couple mansions.
Re:Yeah, and Pocket PC will never kill Palm OS
on
Jobs Unfazed by Zune
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· Score: 1
Heh, if Steve was a typical (not technically competent) CEO, he would be saying, "Hell, our next version will be able to do all that. Plus it will make your bed and cook your breakfast. All for half the price of microsoft's Zune!"
Slashdot Mirror
FTFA: "the ability to obtain pirated music is now so widespread the DRM looks to consumers more like a problem than a benefit."
I must have missed a meeting. What benefits does DRM provide to the consumer?
Excellent point. In a previous article about iTMS declining sales this year, they had a graph showing sales from the beginning of 2005 through summer 06. There was a HUGE spike through the fourth quarter of 05 - the first quarter of 06. After that sales did drop off a bit for the rest of 06, but they're still better than 05. I think you've got it pegged with people recieving iPods for christmas (originally I thought gift cards but apparently those don't count). Could it be these stories about declining sales are just a way to get iTunes in the news during the christmas season?
I get the feeling the lawmakers writing this have NO idea how free email, IM and social networking sites operate.
I agree, especially with your first point. Having no schedule sounds great, but what if you suddenly get a huge project dumped on you? No longer can you say, "My hours are 8-5, if they give me more work than I can do in those hours, they'll have to devote more resources to it." Suddenly you're on call, 24/7, 7 days a week. I hate being on call.
I also hate working on the phone. If someone calls me with a problem, I'll go through one or two obvious fixes, then when they (obviously) don't fix the problem, I'll say, "Hold on, I'll come over." Couldn't do that if I was following Dave Matthews around the country.
It sounds like a great idea for some jobs, but not mine (IT).
I don't understand the spin they're putting on this. According to the graph in TFA, sales dipped slightly in Q3 of last year, then skyrocketed through Q4-Q1 of this year. Through Q2-3 of this year, sales have stayed steady, but still WELL above last year's sales. If they jump again in Q4 and next year, they're growing at a ridiculous rate. I think the article is bending the numbers just a little bit when they say digital song sales are stalled for the first time since the ITMS launched.
My first gen (512MB) shuffle is still going strong, I don't remember ever having to avoid a firmware update. Of course there was a 6 month period where I didn't use it, maybe I lucked out!
Phhp, they push those plans on you, why not take advantage of it? Do the still try to sell warranties for video games?
Now, I don't know much about programming pacemakers, but I imagine if it tries to divide by zero, you might already be dead.
It's almost as if he has no clue what NaN actually stands for...
They change the gameplay, but do they really improve upon it?
I've played EA's NHL titles far more than the Madden series, so I'll use that for my example. I loved NHL 2000. In my opinion, the title achieved perfection that year. Since then, each year has introduced a new gimmick and taken away something that I liked about the previous year. If they could just give me NHL 2000 with updated graphics and rosters, I'd be happy. I have yet to buy NHL 2007... I can't justify spending $50 for a roster update.
30 to 40 variables? He's considering a problem as complex as predicting the future, and he's maxing out at 40 variables? This guy is a quack!
I'd also like to know how they use this data. I mean, if it actually works and is used effectively, you're going to prevent murders, right? But if they prevent the murders, they have no proof that the "tagged" person was ever going to commit a murder, so how do they justify the extra attention given to that person? Plus anyone on probation who does commit a murder will presumably be the one who wasn't tagged, and therefor not watched as closely. So even if it works flawlessly, it will look like it failed unless they purposely let some murders occur to give them the statistics they need to prove the system works. Eesh.
It's amazing how many of you are defending flat out thievery. I mean, it's one thing to download some songs to listen to on your iPod, quite another to take songs which you have absolutely no right to and start selling them for profit. The balls of these guys to say, "Well we pay the Russian copyright organization, which has nothing to do with the RIAA, so we're going to sell RIAA music." It's ridiculous that they lasted so long!
Play guitar hero. Give those joints a good, painful send off! (Seriously what do arthritic guitarists do? There must be a solution!)
I was skimming through the radio stations last night and I caught the end of an anti-drug commercial. It said "resist 'we' (peer pressure)" but for a moment I thought it was a Sony commercial saying "resist 'wii.'"
I've been seeing an awful lot of stories about second life lately. First it was businesses opening virtual stores, then the copybot and now this. Is it all coincidence, or has Linden Labs been pushing their marketing campaign into high gear?
Is Sony going to demand virtual DRM to protect their virtual content, and install a rootkit on the Second Life servers? Seriously this is all very interesting, but I have to wonder how long it's going to last... will the graphics become outdated, will something new come along to replace it, or will people just lose interest?
Who else read slexchange.com as sexchange.com, and immediately wondered at sex changes becoming so popular in australia that the aussies had made a special tax category for them?
I bet the RIAA will still sue if they find you sharing this song on limewire.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. Unfortunately, that actually would have made slightly more sense than what it was really about...
You know, this story is really convincing and emotional, and I was starting to think, "Yeah, that's what Dragonrealms was like for me in college!"
But then I realized, it's all about self control. I played MMORPGs a lot in college, but that's because I had a lot of free time in college. When I graduated and got a job, I limited myself to an hour a night on weeknights, so I wouldn't wind up playing until 2AM. Eventually I got into other things and stopped altogether because I no longer had time for it. These games can consume a lot of time, but only if you let them.
That girl dumped him because he spent too much time in the game. He stopped ALL of his other hobbies and he was staying up til 2AM on weeknights doing raids. He stopped before it ruined his life, but he was on track for a big crash.
Taking people to court isn't their fucking business model. I'm utterly sick of reading that it is. Their business model is selling copies of recorded works. Unfortunately, P2P has fucked that up.
Oh, so normally they would be promoting cds? I hear a lot more about them suing people. I don't see any positive promotion going on. I mean, I'm their target audience, you'd think if they were promoting their artists, I'd have heard about it.
If you love the "product" (music) so much, you'd be willing pay for it. Most downloaders don't, they use LimeWire and that is the end of it.
What are you basing this on? I do download stuff, I also buy stuff. We can sit here and make up numbers all day, but I buy new cds almost weekly. I don't think my download habits are hurting the RIAA very much.
What's unreasonable is the value the RIAA is placing on their plastic discs. They started charging $20 for an album, their sales inevitably declined, and coincidentally, they found something else to blame it on. Now they're bullying people into ridiculous settlements with threats of expensive court cases, because they know the average consumer can't afford a law team equal to their corporately sponsored one. How many cases have they actually taken to court? What's their track record when they do find someone willing to take it all the way, the RIGHT way, instead of settling with them? I think, in a case where the CREATORS and rightful owners of the art can't even agree on whether filesharing is good or bad for them, it's absolutely ludicrous to declare it shoplifting, illegal and immoral.
Taking people to court is not a good business model. They should find a way to make people want to buy the music through them, instead of downloading it. There are already plenty of incentives. CD-quality. Artwork. Extras packaged with the cd. Live music. The RIAA would rather indiscriminately sue people (people who may or may not have illegally downloaded their content, they don't really care). They cut corners in every case, attempting to force a big cash settlement rather than go through the proper channels. These bloodsucking lawyers only represent the greediest of artists: show me one independant musician who feels as if they deserve $1,000+ for every copy of their song they can find on a 13 year old kid's hard drive. If you manage to find one, I'll show you a thousand who WISH they could get their song spread freely on the internet.
Downloaders are customers. They are customers who love the product so much, they want to get their hands on as much of it as they can. They want rarities and live performances and content you can't buy. They want the cd before it is available in stores. And most frequent downloaders probably have larger-than-average collections of legitimately purchased music as well. People don't like the RIAA because they want to piss all over everything, and they want us to pay them to do it.
The whole industry needs to wake up. If they can't find a way to make a profit without suing their customers, they're in the wrong business. Plenty of people have proved you can be pro-filesharing and still make enough sales to own a couple mansions.
Heh, if Steve was a typical (not technically competent) CEO, he would be saying, "Hell, our next version will be able to do all that. Plus it will make your bed and cook your breakfast. All for half the price of microsoft's Zune!"