Steve Jobs is "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform."

[Freg3000]

Sounds like Buy.com's iMusic will fail.

MacMinute

The only thing I see that they have the ITMS on is price, but I'd pay 20 more cents to have much less DRM.

Let's see. Can't burn to CD. Can't put it on multiple computers. Doesn't have the Big 5. Its Windows Media format....

It's everything that it was cracked up to be, which isn't much.

 

[Flowbee]

Ha! What a larf. I might suggest to Scott Blum that he's *not* a visionary AND he's on the wrong platform. I don't believe that people will be interested in buying music that they can only listen to on their computer. I think this music store will be more of a publicity stunt for Buy.com than an actual attempt to sell music online.

 

[tizza]

let's hope iTMS for Windows comes sooner rather than later nonetheless ...

 

[beg_ne]

Yet another example of the PC world copying Apple...and doing it very poorly as usual.

 

[iJon]

well it was sounding like a threat until they said that songs have different DRM, thats crazy. well this is a very popular song, so you are not allowed to burn. im more excited to see how many people buy from it, i have money that it doesnt even make a million the first week, even with 95% of the market.

iJon

 

[Snowy_River]

Are there any personal music players that even support WMF? Isn't that choice of format going to automatically restrict the possibility of listening to them on, say, your Windows iPod?

To me, this seems like a remarkably poor marketing move.

Of course, I really do hope that Apple (Steve) can convince the labels that this will be a good thing for Windows, too.

How much money do you suppost the label's have made since iTMS has been launched for the Mac? How much more will they make when it's launched for Windows?

I know, I know, preaching to the choir...

 

[ig-88]

hacked?

uh.... did it get haxored? all i see on the page is a dumb jpeg of a rocket.

some launch.

 

[Flowbee]

Re: hacked?

Originally posted by ig-88
uh.... did it get haxored? all i see on the page is a dumb jpeg of a rocket.

some launch.

I saw that too. I thought about doing a quick photoshop 'parody' but figured nothing would be quite as funny as that lame rocket.

 

[MrMacMan]

WOW, that is LAME!!!!

Lamest image ever.

no site and 1 image, LAME.

 

[Wonder Boy]

I felt threatend for apple until i read that buy.com would use windows media files. After i read that, i felt a lot better.

 

[gMac]

God I hate to be the first to point this out, but I think the "flame" beneath the rocket is a photoshoped scan of the April 1998 Penthouse centerfold.

 

[Nermal]

A bit off topic but...

At least the rocket says what it is. Local singer Anika Moa's site had a black background, a photo of a lemon tree, and HTML title tag of "no more lemon trees for you". You'd have no idea she was a singer if you didn't already know.

The site's since been updated, now it says "sorry we're late, trafic was ****" (including the spelling mistake).

 

[macnews]

do a little dance, get down tonight

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Join me in a little time warp here back to late April/early May.

(insert funky music and graphics)

The Apple music store won't suceed because of the limiting resrictions. Why buy when you can get it for free? They don't have enough of the market and the limits are just too much. It is bound to fail, people can already get the songs for free. The limits are just way too restrictive.

(back to the present)

Buy.crap launchs new, cheaper music store. (sounds good so far). The DRM will be more restrictive, you may not even be able to burn some songs. (crap out).

What a laugh. Windows users are used to illegal downloads. There are more services for windows users than macs to do peer to peer or illegal (not that they call it that) downloads. And now Mr. buy.com "visionary" thinks he has the answer? They just don't get it. There is more to the apple music store than going to a web broswer and downloading a file. Bringing up the store in itunes just has the right look and feel. Easy to use. Makes me almost feel like I'm in a brick and mortor store only at home. Then you add the reasonable DRM (I think Fair Play describes it very well) and bamm... success.

This is hardly a threat and their graphic so far is just so..... impressive!

 

[Java]

Re: Steve Jobs is "a visionary", but he's on the wrong platform."

Originally posted by Freg3000

Let's see. Can't burn to CD. Can't put it on multiple computers. Doesn't have the Big 5. Its Windows Media format....

Need we say more?

So what buy.com is letting me do is listen to all of my music on one computer and nowhere else.

Hehehe. I can't wait to see this project fail misrably.

Yet another try at copying Apple.

 

[Macette]

i'm still getting the rocket when i look at that page... whassupwithdat?

 

[arn]

Re: Re: Steve Jobs is "a visionary", but he's on the wrong platform."

Originally posted by Java
Need we say more?

So what buy.com is letting me do is listen to all of my music on one computer and nowhere else.

Buy actually does have all 5 Labels on board.... and we're not guarenteed that Apple won't run into the same roadblocks as buy.com... in terms of more restrictive licesnsing issues.

I'm not sure if Apple could launch iTunes on Windows w/ the same restrictions... let's hope Steve's RDF is still strong.

arn

 

[MrMacMan]

Re: Re: Re: Steve Jobs is "a visionary", but he's on the wrong platform."

Originally posted by arn
Buy actually does have all 5 Labels on board.... and we're not guarenteed that Apple won't run into the same roadblocks as buy.com... in terms of more restrictive licesnsing issues.

I'm not sure if Apple could launch iTunes on Windows w/ the same restrictions... let's hope Steve's RDF is still strong.

arn

I hope he signs the same deal with iTunes Windows as with iTunes Mac or else with will suck as much as the next pay service.

 

[arn]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Steve Jobs is "a visionary", but he's on the wrong platform."

Originally posted by MrMacman
I hope he signs the same deal with iTunes Windows as with iTunes Mac or else with will suck as much as the next pay service.

obviously.... but did you read the rumors link in the article from the main page? That's the concern.

anyhow... I wonder if the international readers noticed that the rocket has "USA" on it. Not that it really matters I guess cause I doubt Mac users can use the service.

arn

 

[chewbaccapits]

"BuyMusic founder Scott Blum called Apple CEO Steve Jobs "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform."

You know....I would care more about this cheap comment if it came from a person who could MATCH the caliber of Steve Jobs....

 

[andrewh]

It's lame.. but there are some benefits

While we would love the ITMS to be the only one of it's kind, and prove to the windows world that macs are superior and thus making us superior for choosing them....

The addition of several downloadable music stores will benefit us in the long run. To me there is nothing more disappointing about the iTunes store than "partial albums" and scarce selection. We know it's the record companies being awkward and artists not wanting to participate (like the Stones, foo fighters, chili peppers, etc). But as the record companies get comfortable with it and the artists start to feel like they are missing out they will feel the competitive edge to sell their music online. Yeah, it will take the mass of windows users to make it happen unfortunately. So while it sucks that once again Apple is the innovator that won't reap ALL the rewards, it is good for us because let's face it we weren't going to give up our macs anyway, and the best can get a little better with a few less restrictions.

Yes, I know there will be MORE restrictions for the iTunes store for Windows in the short term. I'm talking about 2-3 years from now.

But I agree the buymusic attempt is a joke in comparison to Apple. Kind of reminds me of the candy iMac colored George Forman grills that came out after the iMacs. it was amazing how many products copied Apple. No imagination!

 

[iJon]

Originally posted by gMac
God I hate to be the first to point this out, but I think the "flame" beneath the rocket is a photoshoped scan of the April 1998 Penthouse centerfold.

well i havnet seen that centerfold, but it does resemble a p***y. good catch, good catch.

iJon

 

[Pancake]

Originally posted by iJon
well i havnet seen that centerfold, but it does resemble a p***y. good catch, good catch.

iJon

I'm really tired and didn't understand what he meant about the centerfold. I'm usually the guys that gets something dirty out of a clean comment. D'oh!


Ontopic, I was a little nervous when I first heard about buy.com's service, but this just isn't something to be worried about.

 

[stingerman]

Apple has a music ecology, that is what makes them so successful. Because of this Apple has made a ton of money off of iTunes Music Store. Do you really think there is any money to be made selling songs for 99 cents. So they keep .35 cents and who knows how much after their costs (CC charges, bandwidth, servers, support personnel, developers, advertising). Maybe when the Windows version comes out it will actually mean anything on its own. But look at all those iPods it sold. My goodness, was it 350,000 at an average of 400 a pop. And who knows how many ibooks and powerbooks it help sell as well.

This is why the other Music stores will fail. Unless their have something else to up or cross sell (Like Apple does), it just can't make enough money to support the overhead. Buy.com can't afford to keep losing money and they will lose money on this venture for a long time before they can even hope to break even.

 

[pretentious]

From the AP story
The service has about 100,000 more songs than iTunes but comparable to pressplay, which was acquired by Roxio and is expected to undergo a relaunch later this year under the Napster brand

How did they get more songs than Apple???

 

[OSeXy!]

Originally posted by stingerman
Apple has a music ecology... look at all those iPods it sold. My goodness, was it 350,000 at an average of 400 a pop. And who knows how many ibooks and powerbooks it help sell as well.

I think that's a very good point. Even though I'm only standing on the sidelines here in Europe, I think apple's 'digital hub' marketing hype might actually become a reality. Ultimately iTMS is just one piece of a very compelling package, and it's the possiblilities of the whole package taken together that make any one bit of it seem desirable.

Of course Apple won't want iTMS to be a real 'loss-leader' when it goes PC, but even in the long term, if they can just break even on actual track sales, I think you're right Steve will still be laughing because of all the other (much higher margin) kit which will be sold to support the tracks themselves.

Buy.com must hope that people will use their other services while they're online. They are playing off the interest Apple has created to bring volume to their site. Time will tell what kind of parasite they are (hopefully not the kind that kills the host).