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MTV and Microsoft Music Store in 2006

alandail said:
No, but you can play a .mov file on windows using quicktime for windows. People have to jump through hoops to get protected .wma files to even play on a mac (and can't burn the files to CD) and it gets even worse with protected .wmv files because MS doesn't really support windows media player on the mac.

MTV/Microsoft has three problems here.

Yes and QT for Windows is slow and bloated, probably just like WMP is on the Mac. You can play protected media files for windows on WMP for the Mac. Just not very well. You can't blame Microsoft, Apple does the same thing, only allowing protected media files to be played on iTunes/QuickTime. Only allowing protected Windows Media files to play on WMP is just as reasonable.

#1 - the iPod dominates the market for mp3 players. If they don't support the iPod, they aren't going to sell a lot of music. And the iPod has already reached the critical mass that makes other players irrelevant, especially in MTV's target market. And apple has reached the economies of scale long enjoyed by PC companies that make it impossible for competing players to compete on price.
#2 - even if they offered something compatible with the iPod, they have to also offer a compelling reason for people to not use the built in iTunes music store to buy their music.
#3 - incompatibility with the mac is going to become increasingly more of a problem as Apple's market share is growing, especially in MTV's target audience.
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#1 - Agree
#2 - Umm, no DRM would be quite compelling, but that would never happen thanks to the RIAA/MPAA idiots. DRM will come back to haunt them, and I will laugh.
#3 - Agree. I think that they should have used a universal file format, but this is Microsoft, and they still have the mentality of crushing the opponent with propritary formats. A mentality that will hurt their bottom line IMO.
 
Awesome, now I will never have to see a laguna beach add on apple's music store! I bet they will be giving lots of songs away on that trl show and not reporting on the latest ipods like they used to. I haven't seen that show for about 9 months. Every now and then I will flip through and actually see music videos playing on mtv, but then I am disappointed after the screaming fans take over half the screen and I realize they only play teeny bopper music (most of the time I have seen it). It is a great idea as far as a tv show for the youth and the mtv/microsoft music store will definitely be tied into the xbox 360 at some point.
 
*Yawn*, will fail like every other lame ass WMA Music Store. Even Yahoo's great subscription priced service (isn't it like 5 bucks a month?) hasn't done well, so I don't see this one going anywhere either.
 
The MTV viewer is not the type to just stop stealing their music to jump on the goodie2shoes banwagon. Most of them wont do it now with iTunes. What makes anyone think they will when the one song MTV tells them to buy is way over priced?... but then again... if they are MTV viewers... their not all there anyway... They just may be on to something.

BRAIN CANT THINK....PLEASE THINK FOR ME MTV
 
TheMasin9 said:
when is microsoft going to realize that apple beat them to something (besides the first consumer computer, and gui,......). Why cant they just come to thier senses(if they have any) and let the ipod roll, hey at least steve made it compatable with windoze. and one question, cant you convert wma into mp3 somehow if not via itunes itself?
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Don't fool yourself, M$ is fully aware of the fact that Apple beat them to this market and now dominates (just like they did with the Mac in the late 80's)

Don't underestimate the amount of money M$ can put behind a venture like this.

Make it default on windows, make it cheap (even if it is a short term loss to M$), all they have to do is keep there foot in the door and chip away.

The race is not to the swift. Deep pockets at M$ may prevail in the long run.
 
~Shard~ said:
That reminds me of something else.... oh yeah, Vista... :cool:
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Don't laugh, it took Apple 10 years to get NexT the way they wanted it. And plenty of garbage OSes before they unvailed OS X. Perfection takes time. :p
 
Yea, take out the DRM. Should just be the honor system and apply to all music stores. RIAA can still try to make sure people don't steal music by monitoring file sharing services like today.

I don't think the Microsoft Media player format has a large enough marketshare for paid songs to exist as a standard. They need to use the mpeg-4 standard like Apple even if it means they have their own Fairplay DRM bolted on.
 
Questions:

How many WMA-based music are there?

How many have failed?

How many are profitable?

There are still MS-based stores out there. They are still running. Granted, they are not as popular as iTunes, but that doesn't mean there's not money to be made.

Plus, having WMP default to the new MTV Music Store will be a major pull. Remember when MS started defaulting to Explorer for web access?
 
Randall said:
Don't laugh, it took Apple 10 years to get NexT the way they wanted it. And plenty of garbage OSes before they unvailed OS X. Perfection takes time. :p
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I don't mind waiting for perfection. Vista, on the other hand... :p :cool:
 
Randall said:
Don't laugh, it took Apple 10 years to get NexT the way they wanted it. And plenty of garbage OSes before they unvailed OS X. Perfection takes time. :p
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I hope you aren't implying that Vista will be perfection, I will give it a thourough testing once it's released to the public, but from what I've seen and read, it's far from perfection. Sounds more like a cluster bleep if you ask me. I assume you were talking more about OS X Tiger which is getting much closer to perfection, and 10.5 should be coming out around the time of Vista.
 
ioinc said:
Don't fool yourself, M$ is fully aware of the fact that Apple beat them to this market and now dominates (just like they did with the Mac in the late 80's)
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Mac never dominated the market. I don't think the mac ever even had 50% of the PC market. The iPod does dominate the mp3 market and shows no signs at all of losing market share. Steve has been very aggressive at growing market share with the iPod. MS is trying to fight the iPod and the iTunes music store at the same time. They would have better success to concede the iPod won that battle, embrace the iPod with their software, and fight the iTunes music store.
 
Gates paints a picture of Microsoft as innovators, but all they do is try and muscle on other companies innovations. They are much too far behind to catch up, and by the time they do Uncle Steve will have given the world something new and exciting to play with.

As far as MTV goes, they are dropping market share rapidly and are irrelevant to most music buyers out there, unless you're a Jessica Simpson fan of course.
 
EssentialParado said:
I just wish they'd remove the DRM altogether on iTunes.
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FairPlay is very broad and allows everybody to basically do what they want except exchanging the music. If there isn't any DRM but just a watermark the risk of getting some of your music in the wild is very big (give some songs to the nephew or lose an iPod ...) but with the watermark those pesky lawyers will track them down to you. The DRM practically saves your life. :)
 
alandail said:
Make no mistake about it, MS could support the iPod with windows media player if they wanted to. They could convert their files to AAC and copy them to the iPod. They don't do this because they still think they can knock the iPod off.
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Exactly what Real/Rhapsody did with their "Harmony" technology. For purchased tracks, wrap AAC in their own DRM, which gets translated to FairPlay compatble DRM when transferred to an iPod or transcoded to WMA for a non-iPod.

Note that they still don't offer an iPod solution for subscription tracks, though these work on "plays for sure" players.

B
 
Photorun said:
MTV is about as relevant to music as bicycle to a fish.
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I think that's missing the point. Does the iPod owe its success to music or to pop-culture? While the answer is obviously both, don't overlook the impact of "trendyness" on the iPod's success.

MTV carries a lot of cultural cache, and MS has a lot of cash. This music service, once it arrives, isn't going to go away. And when the 14-25 year olds find out their iPods won't play the songs they get from MTV, and when the cast of Laguna Beach starts using iRivers, and the cast of the Real World starts using iRivers, and when cars get "Pimped" with iRivers ... you can see where this is going, short term, but more worrying, long term. MTV provides MS with a visible way to undercut the "trend" that is the iPod.

Sorry, Shard. Get out of AAPL while you can!
 
Why is no one concerned?

Yes, my initial reaction was "not a chance," but let's not forget one thing here - market share. As much as all of us love Apple, we are only 4-5% of the market. Yes, young people can download iTunes and install it on their PC's, but what about those not computer savy? What do you think they will use when Urge is bundled with Windows in the future?

Does anyone remember NETSCAPE?!?!?! They had like 95% of the market until Microsoft bundled Explorer with windows, and now they are relatively extinct.

Apple needs to pressure the U.S. Dept. of Justice to force MS to bundle iTunes with any new version of Windows or Apple will infact be in trouble.
 
thedude110 said:
I think that's missing the point. Does the iPod owe its success to music or to pop-culture? While the answer is obviously both, don't overlook the impact of "trendyness" on the iPod's success.

MTV carries a lot of cultural cache, and MS has a lot of cash. This music service, once it arrives, isn't going to go away. And when the 14-25 year olds find out their iPods won't play the songs they get from MTV, and when the cast of Laguna Beach starts using iRivers, and the cast of the Real World starts using iRivers, and when cars get "Pimped" with iRivers ... you can see where this is going, short term, but more worrying, long term. MTV provides MS with a visible way to undercut the "trend" that is the iPod.

Sorry, Shard. Get out of AAPL while you can!
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or the cast of MTV's shows won't look cool because they don't have iPods.
 
As bad as MTV is.It still holds the minds of a LOT of the young crowd..Those MTV drones will simply buy a MP3 player that plays wma files to listen to the drunk teenie boppers "sing".

They will be successful to the point that MTV is successful..
 
thedude110 said:
And when the 14-25 year olds find out their iPods won't play the songs they get from MTV, and when the cast of Laguna Beach starts using iRivers, and the cast of the Real World starts using iRivers, and when cars get "Pimped" with iRivers ...
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Don't worry, if wma content is getting to important Apple will make iTunes compatible with wma DRM in the same way Real/Rhapsody makes the iTunes music compatible with there service. Look at podcastig, there is no direct profit for Apple but they sure as hell support it.
 
Yeah, Apple has the lions share of the market. We don't need to pay attention to Microsoft and their legion of compatible players since everybody will always buy Apple's product. Strangely, this all seems familiar somehow.
 
Thank you Steve Jobs for being too stupid to realize that competing when you only have 4% is a bad idea.
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4% of $20billion is still larger than 74% of 20 million? If Apple wasn't making money with the computers, they wouldn't be in business.

p.s. those dollar amounts are just for fun:D

please take nothing I say here to be the truth just speculating!!!
 
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