Apple Sells 275,000 Songs in First 18 Hours

[stuartmingay]

... and the race is on.

... well, hats off to Apple for doing this. Despite its current short-comings (US only), it looks like this may be "the next big thing" for Apple.

Get a few Indies on board, open it up to the ret of the world (double the sales), then get Windows users to buy iTunes for $25, and Apple are laughing.

Well done ... in a very British sense.

Stu

 

[Bengt77]

Re: Re: apple blew it

Originally posted by RIP
Hmmm. Maybe the job posting was a decoy to mask the amount of development that has actually taken place on iTunes up to this point. People work on the windows version of Quicktime, so there are people at Apple that know Win32.

By the end of the year could mean tomorrow...

Yeah, that was exactly my thought. I think Apple has something up it's sleeve to annoy the hell out of the competetion. And it will not just be winTunes...

 

[Mudbug]

Originally posted by makkystyle
Let's remember that the reason Apple has the majors on board is because they are protecting the industries interests. Competitors will have a hard time convincing labels that they can do it better.

I think this is exactly why it will work. With the trust of all of the big 5, there's stability for the service. I hope that those record companies are smart enough to realize that a stand alone company producing software like WINTUNES (or whatever) as a piece of software doesn't have the corporate stability or ability to pull this off like apple. This is a distribution model that rivals the brick-and-mortal record stores that we all know and love. Stable platform, quality music, good representation of the labels, immediate low cost distribution. Sounds like a marketing dream machine.

 

[nuckinfutz]

As usually, apple's release leaves something to be desired. Why apple didn't release a windows version alongside their mac version is beyond me. Clearly they havn't even hardly started on working on the windows version,

Why would Apple start working on a Windows version of iTunes until they were sure they had all of the Big5 onboard. Hell they were probably closing the deal up until the last moment. I heard rumors that Sony/Columbia was pretty difficult. By the time PC users come aboard there will probably be 600k tunes available. Apple needs to start in baby steps. Had they attacked the largest market without the necessary infrastructure setup the site would have died. US based Mac users alone strained it enough on the first day.

Towards that end, it would make great sense if apple could bundle the perks of their song service when you buy a new computer, i.e. give away 100 free song downloads with the purchase of any imac. but alas, I see no indication that they are going to do such a thing.

Of course you don't see any indications. You're not privvy to that information. Once the service reaches a certain point in which it's a bonafied success story. Apple should be able to work out promotions and specials to drive sales. If that means giving songs to new Mac users fine. There are so many opportunities to capitalize on this. I'd be lickin' my chops if I was Apple.

i heard a interview i think it was saliva. they said for each song played on the radio... yes played.. they get 10 cents.. now 10 for a DL does not sound like alot. for apple it's not right away but after the service gets established it may very well be. and when i say pure profit i was talking about the record lables

That sounds awfully high. MC Hammer had one of the best deals in the industry as a Rapper. He made a little over a $1 per CD sales which was unheard of at that time for the genre. What your post is saying is that a relatively small group gets paid $1 everytime their song is played 10 times? Them's fuzzy number there seeing as how Radio Play doesn't generate any verifiable sales.

 

[Cecret]

Does anyone have a link or pdf of the fortune article about this??? It's really interesting.

 

[thrice]

but what are we really getting...?

I was impressed with the download service when it first came out...there's the novelty of it all that "WOW, I can't believe they did this!"

But now I have a few concerns about it.

First of all, the price. Look at what we are sacrificing for convenience. $0.99 gets you a song and $9.99 gets you the album, but you don't get any other info. What about liner notes? What about album art? (Yes, you do get COVER album art, but not the stuff that sometimes appears inside the booklet) What about lyrics and credits for the album? They're lost. Perhaps Apple will incorporate this into the id3 tags eventually. But for the price you aren't getting any of the things you would normally get with the purchase of an album.

Second, doesn't it bother anyone that Apple has essentially placed a store on YOUR computer!!!! The iTunes Music Store is built into YOUR copy of the program, what other info can Apple retrieve from it. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist normally, but does anyone know if Apple can/cannot read/determine what type of music YOU are listening to. Obviously they can track your purchases, but what else can they track. Is there anyway to monitor this on your own machine?

Overall, I agree that online downloading is the future of music distribution. If it presents alternatives to cutting down trees for booklets and limiting the amount of petroleum products used (plastics) then that's great. I think that we need to be a little wary though, at least about what we are really getting when we plunk down our CC's for new and innovative novelties.

 

[pilotgi]

Check this out

There's an article at MacCentral about the idea of Microsoft offering a similar music service. Here's a quote:

"It's common sense that entertainment industries are cautious about working with Microsoft," said Technology Business Research analyst Lindy Lesperance. "Now more than ever they look at the long-term implications of making deals with Microsoft."

The article is here:

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/05/01/itunesms/

 

[areyouwishing]

All this makes me think that the 970 is not coming til January(im not trying to get into a debate about the 970 delivery, so please dont quote me).

The key to all this is the windows market. I can only see one company that could pull all this together before Apple makes iTunes for windows, and that's Microsoft...only because they have the money to throw around.

The steps that need to be taken to get Microsoft (or anyone else)on the windows music download market:

1. Create proprietary codec for audio, that is as good as AAC
2. Modify/Create Software application
2. Sign up the majors
3. Encode all songs (At least 200,000)
4. Create infrastructure (servers, interface, billing scheme)
5. Market the heck out of it...and more ingeniously than Jobs, while not being labeled as a me-too effort.

The steps that need to be taken to get Apple on the windows music download market:
1. Create iTunes for PC

I just hope that when Apple says iTunes for windows this year...it means this year. They've got everything else in place. As of today they have 8 months to build a windows iTunes.

 

[bokdol]

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
That sounds awfully high. MC Hammer had one of the best deals in the industry as a Rapper. He made a little over a $1 per CD sales which was unheard of at that time for the genre. What your post is saying is that a relatively small group gets paid $1 everytime their song is played 10 times? Them's fuzzy number there seeing as how Radio Play doesn't generate any verifiable sales.

yeah i thought it funny if i did not hear it straight from the lead singer..... but on a najor radio station in DC he said the band get 10 cents per song played. MC hammer got screwed by his record company. and that was back in the early 90. lots of people were getting screwed. ( before people realized how much it really cost to produce cd's. ) i dont know how but he also mention how some old dude who wrote songs long time ago was still getting paid because they play his stuff on the radio.

 

[RIP]

Re: but what are we really getting...?

Originally posted by thrice
I was impressed with the download service when it first came out...there's the novelty of it all that "WOW, I can't believe they did this!"

But now I have a few concerns about it.

First of all, the price. Look at what we are sacrificing for convenience. $0.99 gets you a song and $9.99 gets you the album, but you don't get any other info. What about liner notes? What about album art? (Yes, you do get COVER album art, but not the stuff that sometimes appears inside the booklet) What about lyrics and credits for the album? They're lost. Perhaps Apple will incorporate this into the id3 tags eventually. But for the price you aren't getting any of the things you would normally get with the purchase of an album.

Second, doesn't it bother anyone that Apple has essentially placed a store on YOUR computer!!!! The iTunes Music Store is built into YOUR copy of the program, what other info can Apple retrieve from it. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist normally, but does anyone know if Apple can/cannot read/determine what type of music YOU are listening to. Obviously they can track your purchases, but what else can they track. Is there anyway to monitor this on your own machine?

Overall, I agree that online downloading is the future of music distribution. If it presents alternatives to cutting down trees for booklets and limiting the amount of petroleum products used (plastics) then that's great. I think that we need to be a little wary though, at least about what we are really getting when we plunk down our CC's for new and innovative novelties.

Good Points, and there is a ton of room for improvement. One would be to price down a bit for beginning tracks that sometimes run for 20 seconds or so. Sometimes there is the need to purchase a 20 second track because it is somewhat an intro to the next song and doesn't sound right without it, yet that 20 second track costs $1. Suddently the 1 song you wanted costs $2 because the producers decided to break it up into two tracks.

I love the service. I hope to see it's flaws improve. Those flaws won't prevent me from using it however. Good woork Apple.

 

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
Exactly! Everyone hunted down their top 20 songs and bought them. The follow up is "Now what?".

Statistically, the first couple of days numbers are meaningless. They're all built on hype. I'll be suprised if they make as much during an entire week in June as they did during the first 18 hours.

Good luck Apple... - j

New albums come out every week. Plus, there are still dozens of "Major Artists" that haven't been added to the store. I suspect that Apple purposely withheld a few from the grand-opening so that they could add them in the coming weeks with big announcements. On top of that, there are still tons of older artists, independent labels, and other music that will be added over the coming months. And finally, Apple is planning to roll out the service to windows users and internationally. I think that by the end of the year, daily revenue could far surpass the opening day numbers.

PS - I also think that most people have a wish list of more than "20 songs."

 

[MCroft]

Re: 2.5% - 3.0%

Originally posted by BigJayhawk
I agree with your post (and my addition makes the vast success twice as potent).

However, my two cents is that (unfortunately) I think our market share is more like 2.5% - 3.0% now.

True, but office computers and servers may not be buying music. Anyone have a figure for the home computer segment?

 

[acj]

smart to wait

I think it's smart to wait to release for Windows. Then they can get an idea of how much they need to beef up their file serving capacity based on their sales to Apple customers. If it actually DOES turn out to be a complete failure, then they don't waste the extra millions getting things ready for the PC side.

 

[Jimmni]

Re: but what are we really getting...?

Originally posted by thrice
Second, doesn't it bother anyone that Apple has essentially placed a store on YOUR computer!!!! The iTunes Music Store is built into YOUR copy of the program, what other info can Apple retrieve from it. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist normally, but does anyone know if Apple can/cannot read/determine what type of music YOU are listening to. Obviously they can track your purchases, but what else can they track. Is there anyway to monitor this on your own machine?

I don't think anything is going on here... Has anyone read the agreement in detail? They'd have to specify there that they were harvesting information from your machine. If you haven't agreed to it it's an invasion of privacy... (Anyone ever read the Kazaa agreement? They practically get permission off you to name your first-born...)

If you're really concerned, grab Little Snitch. (http://www.obdev.at) Any attempts by Apple to send information back to their servers will be shown by that. Of course, they could piggyback it on a store purchase, but then we're really getting into conspiracy theories...

- Jimmni

 

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by Flowbee
PS - I also think that most people have a wish list of more than "20 songs."

Why? I've pretty much got everything I've wanted, 7000 songs or so, and didn't feel compelled by anything on the Apple site (or any other for that matter)... If people really wanted the songs that badly, they would have aquired them by now. What they really wanted to do was try out Apple's new service.

Yes, new music will come out, but I have a hard time imagining anyone sustaining a 20 song per day buying spree for long. Certainly 20 new good songs aren't coming out every day. Probably not every month. Sometimes not every year... The novelty will wear off before the first bills come in.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not naysaying the service. It may pan out to be the perfect middleman between consumers and producers. I am rolling my eyes at the hype though. Really, it's just another way to get music. Evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Remember the big numbers Apple posted about .Mac converts? They kept up that pace for about a week and that's only because of promotional giveaways.

I may be wrong, but only time will tell... - j

 

[Vlade]

Lets say a few years from now 50% of music is bought through the internet, do you think some big artists might leave there record lable? If they are only getting 10% of the profit, and a small record company is offering 20%, who would stay with the big 5?

 

[dongmin]

Re: apple blew it

Originally posted by rutabaga
as usual with apple, incredible idea, flawed execution.

Question: when was the last time apple came up with an absolutley brilliant idea?
Answer: just about every product they release.

Question: when was the last time apple actually executed the release of that product in a brilliant fashion?
Answer: umm, maybe the pismo g3 powerbooks?

As usually, apple's release leaves something to be desired. Why apple didn't release a windows version alongside their mac version is beyond me. Clearly they havn't even hardly started on working on the windows version, if the job posting on monster.com is any indication. The eight months from now until the end of the year (which is the timeframe within which jobs said

as usual, the exaggerated reactionary response...

You're reading awfully lot into this Monster.com job listing. None of us has any real clue about what's going on inside Apple, especially in software development. For all we know, they could've been working on an PC version of iTunes ever since they released the PC iPod. The new job posting is for one software engineer; you think it'll be just one guy making this port? More likely, they have had a team in place and are simply adding another engineer to speed development.

Also, there may be many behind-the-scenes issues to porting this service to Windows, the main one being getting the record lables to agree to it. There've been various reports saying how record companies want to test this first in the smaller Mac market before trying it at a bigger scale. So this may be out of Apple's hands.

As others have noted, Microsoft is probably the only one outside of Apple that can pull this off in a hurried timeframe. I'm not saying it would be anywhere near as good as Apple's, but they definitely have the muscle to get something out there and 'persuade' people to use their service.

Apple has definitely created a lot of buzz in this new arena. It'll be interesting to see how everyone responds.

By the way, I think Apple has hit a plenty of homeruns with new product launches: the iBook ('icebook'), TiBook, iTunes, iPod, iDVD, original iMac, and on and on.

 

[macquariumguy]

Re: but what are we really getting...?

Originally posted by thrice
First of all, the price. Look at what we are sacrificing for convenience. $0.99 gets you a song and $9.99 gets you the album, but you don't get any other info. What about liner notes? What about album art? (Yes, you do get COVER album art, but not the stuff that sometimes appears inside the booklet) What about lyrics and credits for the album?

That matters to some, but not to others. Speaking only for myself, I don't care.

When I got my iPod in 11/01, I ripped all my CD's (about 200) with iTunes and wired my computer to my stereo. All the original CD's are in their wallets, virtually untouched since then. All the jewel cases are in a big box in the rafters in my garage. I'm seriously thinking about re-ripping the CD's at a high bitrate and selling all the CD's back to the used CD store for whatever I can get for them. I just don't see much of a use for them any more. I certainly won't miss having them around for the new music I buy online.

 

[beatle888]

Originally posted by barkmonster
I wonder what apple the music label think of all this or are they too small these days to complain ?

It's not like apple computer are technically running a rival record label but apple the record label might get nasty.

Apple Computer would win again but what would they call the system alert in the victory's honour, maybe "sosumitwo", "wegotback", or "imagine all the gpul"

is this in reference to the beatles catalog? i though michael jackson owned that.

 

[beatle888]

Originally posted by Vlade
Lets say a few years from now 50% of music is bought through the internet, do you think some big artists might leave there record lable? If they are only getting 10% of the profit, and a small record company is offering 20%, who would stay with the big 5?

this is the great thing. we can possibly get music out of its current state of being a corporate industry and give back the rights to artists.


i really doubt that apple will be the main player in this download service. its only a matter of tme before microsoft does the same thing...ripping off as much as they can from apple and giving their second rate services to their customers. also, whats to prevent amazon from adding this to their store? i dont know. maybe apple can keep up with the competition once the other players enter the market.

 

[Flowbee]

I hope that this competition from Apple forces the CD retailers to lower their prices. I've bought 2 complete cds from the iTunes store and saved about $10 over retail. However, if I could have bought them in a retail store for, say, $10.99 (instead of the current 14.99) I think I would have preferred buying the actual cds.

 

[pkradd]

Speaking to a friend who works for one of the "5 Majors" revealed some interesting news. Apple wanted worldwide use of the recordings but the labels were unwilling to do it for the first years "test". If the store proves to be very successful, then rights for other countries will be added as long as the artists contracts permit this. Some artists who turned down rights may come along, particularly when the Windows version appears early next year. Don't blame Apple, they tried. As far as independent labels, they will be added during the next few months as SJ has said in an interview with Time Magazine.

 

[Bob Knob]

Errors on the first day

As to all the access errors on the first day (in the first few hours) I have a very limited inside connection (in QC in a somewhat related division) that said the rollout was tied so close to SJ's announcement that they were literally uploading/onlining stuff as he spoke, and (no surprise) the demo SJ ran was completely off a server backstage. The reason I was given for the tight schedule wasn't necessarily because things were running behind but actually do to the fear of leaks before the announcement. I was told that sections were upped/onlined according to genres (alphabetical), and that "World" actually wasn't completely up till about three hours after the end of the announcement.

 

[beatle888]

Re: but what are we really getting...?

Originally posted by thrice
Second, doesn't it bother anyone that Apple has essentially placed a store on YOUR computer!!!! The iTunes Music Store is built into YOUR copy of the program, what other info can Apple retrieve from it. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist normally, but does anyone know if Apple can/cannot read/determine what type of music YOU are listening to. Obviously they can track your purchases, but what else can they track. Is there anyway to monitor this on your own machine?

oh please, read the agreement if you have such fears. and they didnt install a "STORE" on my computer. thats just your imagination getting the best of you. they made a LINK to a web server that you browse with itunes.

 

[lmalave]

Originally posted by Flowbee
I hope that this competition from Apple forces the CD retailers to lower their prices. I've bought 2 complete cds from the iTunes store and saved about $10 over retail. However, if I could have bought them in a retail store for, say, $10.99 (instead of the current 14.99) I think I would have preferred buying the actual cds.

And I would expect competition to bring down online prices as well. I could easily see song prices going down to $0.75 or even lower if you have 2 or 3 big names (including Apple) competing with each other.