iTunes on Campus

[MacRumors]

Alongside iTunes 4.5, Apple also appears to be promoting iTunes to educational institutions with iTunes on Campus.

Napster has recently seen some sucess in providing volume licensing to several colleges. Napster's unlimited subscription service allows them to accomplish this -- limiting access to music for the duration of the subscription.

iTunes on Campus does not provide a similar service and appears to be more of a marketing effort with permission for institutions to distribute the iTunes software:

This license agreement will allow you to distribute iTunes as a download from within your campus network or through individual CDs that you create. As a part of this program, Apple will also provide to you the creative artwork (for newspaper ads and flyers) about iTunes that you can use to tell students about iTunes.

 

[Don't panic]

great move.

[edit] correction: it seems that the only thing it offers is free distribution of iTunes, which is free anyway.
So unless I'm missing something it's pure PR BS.
well. i guess it still enhances awareness...

 

[Grimace]

If you show students (most PC users don't know about this feature) how you can stream other student's music on the network - they will ALL convert!!

 

[PretendPCuser]

Possible for both?

Is there any possibility that subscription models and pay-for-song models could live in harmony? Why not, after all. Some people like the subscription model, others want the music to be there and usable to themselves whenever they choose.

Is one better than the other? Time will tell, but i imagine both could wind up being viable for a few companies, maybe not all, but certainly the top in each category.

What ya'll think?

 

[joemama]

great move.

[edit] correction: it seems that the only thing it offers is free distribution of iTunes, which is free anyway.
So unless I'm missing something it's pure PR BS.
well. i guess it still enhances awareness...

Exactly....students can download this for free anyways. Pretty much it's letting Colleges do the marketing for Apple....

oh boy.

Give students a discount on top of that, say 75 cents a song and now you're on to something!

 

[coolfactor]

Is there any possibility that subscription models and pay-for-song models could live in harmony? Why not, after all. Some people like the subscription model, others want the music to be there and usable to themselves whenever they choose.

Is one better than the other? Time will tell, but i imagine both could wind up being viable for a few companies, maybe not all, but certainly the top in each category.

What ya'll think?

I'm in favor of the idea to stream music from the store as a Radio Station, or multiple stations for different genres, and then provide a "Buy Now" link on the currently-playing song. I know I would be click-happy.

 

[G4scott]

I thought about signing up my university with our president's name and e-mail, but I don't think I'm a representative of the university, and didn't want to get in trouble...

Instead, I just sent an e-mail to our ITS department, hoping someone will catch on...

 

[billyboy]

Exactly. The direct links to the Music Store is going to sell so much music it wont be funny. For most students, the standard of being broke the last week of the month will extend to being totally broke the last 2 weeks.

 

[PretendPCuser]

good ideas

I'm in favor of the idea to stream music from the store as a Radio Station, or multiple stations for different genres, and then provide a "Buy Now" link on the currently-playing song. I know I would be click-happy.

How would that pay system work? Reduced subscription rate? Say, $4/mo for streaming capabilities and then still $1/song? That could work. With the technology to record streaming music, that could be seen by the record companies as another avenue of lost revenue. I wonder if that's the case.

I do like the idea though. I wonder if it'd be possible for the internet radio stations to do that, cause in effect, they are just marketing the music.

Good thoughts!

 

[Mr.Hey]

Apple is killin em, the competition hasn't a chance in HE77. We officially now have 6 to 7 trolls here at MR. You know you've made it as a site when you pass the 3 troll marker.

 

[Gabriel]

College's really hate P2P services. Not only does it open the college up to legal action but it also costs a LOT of money and requires a lot of work. You can end up with a handful of users consuming 75% of the available bandwidth, causing havoc for everyone else. The solution is to either add more bandwidth or to go around blocking offenders, neither of which most schools seem to want to do.

It seems like what Apple is offering is for the college to burn a CD of necessary software (virus protection, a free telnet client, iTunes) for incoming students and add a flyer saying "look, don't download music off KaZaA for these reasons, use this iTunes software instead."

Its not a bad idea and I suspect that a lot of schools do it anyway.

 

[kevin49093]

The streaming from iTMS wouldn't really work to their advadtage. It is too easy to capture that audio.

I also don't see how they could charge different rates for college students. Good idea, just don't know how they would do it...


Did anyone else see on the apple site where it says that there is one free single each week from an up and comming group? Is that ongoing, or will it be starting soon?

 

[chabig]

"Exactly....students can download this for free anyways. Pretty much it's letting Colleges do the marketing for Apple...."

Essentially you are correct. This is just marketing. But it's a necessary step if they really want to be successful. Don't shortchange the power of marketing. How do you think Microsoft achieved the position it has today? By making good products?

By the way, the website says students will get one free song per week. That's not a bad deal.

Chris

 

[a17inchFuture]

Haven't read any of the posts, so excuse me if this is a repeat.

These "individual CD's" they are refering to already exist on my campus, minus the itunes obviously, and I have to say I think it is a good idea by the Apple people. The cd's are so crucial, I believe that doing this will make almost every student exposed to itunes and apple.

The CD's contain automatic integration into the college ethernet network, and mail system, so it is pretty much a neccessity for every freshman (living in the dorm). If iTunes is triggered to make itself the default music program, or has the ability to tranfer and encode, a la the new itunes 4.5, it could allow for easily switchable masses.

Bravo for Apple. Now if they could simply lower their (over)prices on everything by 20 percent . . . .

 

[a17inchFuture]

ps, i think that any use of iTunes is the overall goal, not just itunes music shop. The aesthetic of iTunes, and apple programs in general, is quickly visible to anyone. Thus, I think they hope to at least convert them to itunes, for a start, with the ipod and music shop as much further down the line goals.

 

[themadchemist]

College's really hate P2P services. Not only does it open the college up to legal action but it also costs a LOT of money and requires a lot of work. You can end up with a handful of users consuming 75% of the available bandwidth, causing havoc for everyone else. The solution is to either add more bandwidth or to go around blocking offenders, neither of which most schools seem to want to do.

It seems like what Apple is offering is for the college to burn a CD of necessary software (virus protection, a free telnet client, iTunes) for incoming students and add a flyer saying "look, don't download music off KaZaA for these reasons, use this iTunes software instead."

Its not a bad idea and I suspect that a lot of schools do it anyway.

Northwestern limits the bandwidth for P2P network apps. I'm assuming they've restricted bandwidth on the ports P2P services use and then blocked off the other ports. I tried routing my P2P services through the HTTP and FTP ports, but the network wouldn't let me do it.

Basically, everyone with a PC uses Gnucleus to share files with others within northwestern (without a bandwidth hit) and all of us with Macs weep. And we don't even have myTunes. Jeez!

 

[joemama]

The streaming from iTMS wouldn't really work to their advadtage. It is too easy to capture that audio.

Can't people easily download songs for free off the radio? I hate when people bring up this arguement....

 

[idkew]

I think this is an easy way for a University to say, "We are trying to stop illegal downloading" when the RIAA comes knocking at their doors. Just a little CYA tactic.

 

[wdlove]

I think that this is a worthwhile campaign. Marketing is the key. Those that are PC users may not have heard of the iTMS. Once Apple gets them on board at that age, they may have them for life.

 

[eazyway]

the best feature for schools

If you show students (most PC users don't know about this feature) how you can stream other student's music on the network - they will ALL convert!!

My son always had access to all of his friends music on the school net at university when they all loaded up the iTunes program. This way it is really cheap to listen to music and it really streams very very fast.

 

[ColdZero]

If you show students (most PC users don't know about this feature) how you can stream other student's music on the network - they will ALL convert!!

Except that I can't even stream my own music across the network to my laptop when I'm on the other side of campus. My laptop and desktop are on 2 different subnets, making streaming usless to me. I have to do 1 of 3 things....

1. Create a VPN between my laptop and my desktop
2. Copy that music onto my laptop
3. Use an smb share

All options except the first mean I have to maintain playlists and stuff on each one. Rather than just let me stream my OWN music across the network.

 

[ingenious]

Except that I can't even stream my own music across the network to my laptop when I'm on the other side of campus. My laptop and desktop are on 2 different subnets, making streaming usless to me. I have to do 1 of 3 things....

1. Create a VPN between my laptop and my desktop
2. Copy that music onto my laptop
3. Use an smb share

All options except the first mean I have to maintain playlists and stuff on each one. Rather than just let me stream my OWN music across the network.

AFAIK, this uses Rendezvous..... right? So why does iChat rendezvous work across subnets and printer sharing not? My iTunes sharing works across subnets, but i can't get printer sharing to work across subnets.... can ne one explain this?

 

[G4scott]

The key to this whole thing is marketing... Right now, in my dorm of 2000+ people, I only see about 3 other people sharing their music... I also know that it's going to take more than me writing "Download iTunes 4.5, www.itunes.com" on the dry-erase board on my door to get the 50+k students here to start to use iTunes...

It's actually kinda sad, I see more people sharing music in the libraries than the dorms...

 

[ColdZero]

The key to this whole thing is marketing... Right now, in my dorm of 2000+ people, I only see about 3 other people sharing their music... I also know that it's going to take more than me writing "Download iTunes 4.5, www.itunes.com" on the dry-erase board on my door to get the 50+k students here to start to use iTunes...

It's actually kinda sad, I see more people sharing music in the libraries than the dorms...

Probably because the library is based on 1 or 2 subnets for wireless clients, while your dorm floor has its own subnet. In the dorm I lived in freshman year, there were 2 subnets for each floor, east and west. There were only about 30 people on each subnet. If your dorm is setup in a similar manor, that would be the reason you only see a few people.

 

[Gabriel]

Well on my campus (~400 students - you heard that right) I routinely see about 35 or so shares on iTunes. Only 5 of them have upgraded to 4.5 thus far I know of at least a dozen more people who use iTunes but don't share their music (bastards) so that doesn't seem to bad to me.

Actually, I think Apple seems to have made huge strides on campuses. I was at the main library at Columbia about this time last year and as I was entering the building I saw a guy with a PowerBook, and expecting this to be a unique find I went up to the guy and said "He, nice PowerBook" or something. He looked at me like I was crazy and I though "Eh, New Yorkers." Then as I kept walking through the building I noticed that maybe half the students or more had Mac laptops. I was pretty astonished. Same on my campus, about half the laptops I see are Macs and many of these people are new Mac users.