MTV and Microsoft Music Store in 2006

[chukronos]

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.

I agree. I think this is just another ploy by the Record labels to force Apple's hand and get tiered pricing and licensed fairplay. What better opportunity than to get a popular "music" television station to promote the only format that you have control over.

I would be surprised if MTV wasn't getting a larger percentage of the sale price of a song. For no other reason than so record companies could get their way and have their format plastered all over the TV. MTV isn't stupid. They know the iPod is the dominant player out there. There had to be incentive for them to choose this platform.

You won't see anymore reports about the iPod on MTV, except to say how the screen scratches easily and some people had to return them because they froze.
-Chuck

 

[chukronos]

you guys don't seem to understand. itunes isn't that good on windows. when i used to have a pc, i never touched itunes because of how crappy the windows verson was. now, consider most computer owners use windows. also consider most young kids who own a pc watch mtv. this should be a good competition to apple, and if you think otherwise you're just fooling yourself. i hate mtv/ms as much as the next person, but to think they don't have a chance over a company with such a small market share? and to think just because its .wma it will flop? what happens when windows comes with this 'urge' program? for now, people buy ipods because of how it works with itunes(even though most windows users would rather get another brand). so when this happens, expect other mp3 players sales to go up and apple to take a hit. how big this hit will be is anybodies guess.

you know i love apple, and i love coming here, but sometimes you people just can't even think of something competing with apple. it's like nothing has a chance when apple already does it. personally, i hope this urge program comes out good because right now itunes is just doing whatever it wants..it needs to be pushed by someone already.

I use itunes on my pc laptop just as easily as I do on my wife's ibook. I don't really notice much difference. It does take longer to load on my laptop. But, I don't get into iTunes a much as others. I just use it to download and listen to my music, listen to the radio stations, Burn and rip cd's, and download the latest episode of lost if my signal goes out during a storm.

MTV has a pretty good chance. They can control what they report about and what is seen in their shows. I am sure they will have an impact. I hate the record companies, so I won't be happy about the impact.
-Chuck

 

[chukronos]

Too bad, though...some competition for itms would do wonders (at keeping the prices down).

Couldn't be more wrong. This competition is a marketing strategy to raise the prices. The plan for MTV is to have higher prices on popular songs. Exactly what the record companies want to do with itunes. If this is somewhat successful, then the record companies can start pulling out of iTunes, and just go with the tiered pricing approach.

 

[Peace]

The RIAA is treating music purchasers like heroin addicts.The more you like it,the more it costs.and that is wrong.

 

[seashellz]

I sometimes chuckle when I see that APPLE's idea of kool is U2.

But on second thought, MTV/MS idea of kool will be The Raspberries, the Fixx, or hell, even Paul Revere and the Raiders-along with Cliff Aiken, of course.
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>>Don't underestimate the amount of money M$ can put behind a venture like this.

True-but dont underestimate the amount of money that can be poured down the sh*thole, with little to show for it.
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>>you guys don't seem to understand. itunes isn't that good on windows...

Well, SOMEBODY out there is buying them-theyre selling faster than condoms at a Hookers Convention-and since APPLE is only 5% of the market, alot of Windows users must like iPods...

 

[Fireburst]

I think a bit of competition will be good. If I was Apple I would be very worried. M$ haven't even tried to make a dent in this market yet but when they do I think we will all soon know about it.

 

[Randall]

>>you guys don't seem to understand. itunes isn't that good on windows...

Well, SOMEBODY out there is buying them-theyre selling faster than condoms at a Hookers Convention-and since APPLE is only 5% of the market, alot of Windows users must like iPods...

I agree. I own an iPod (20Gb 4th generation with clickwheel), and I use iTunes for Windows almost exclusively. iTunes is excellent, I LOVE smart playlists. I love it so much that I spent 4 weeks properly re-tagging every mp3 and m4a file I own ~18Gb worth of files. It is QuickTime for Windows that sucks. It's very sluggish on even the fastest desktop systems around, and it takes up >80% CPU time. That's a different topic though. iTunes rules! Best digital audio jukebox I have ever had the pleasure of using. Thank you Apple, for bringing it to the PC!

 

[strange days]

i think if MTV show guests start playing around with non-iPod devices, and even mention URGE, they can be sued for hidden publicity, and forbidden market tactics. The same applies if M$ ships their WMP with URGE embedded; in Europe, at least, they will have to pay many times over a fat fine for illegal attempt to create monopolistic dominance ( or something like that )...

...and if they fail to catch the cool wave with URGE, it will be even funnier...

 

[SPUY767]

Microsoft is already every bit as cool as MTV.

That is so true, this made me think of that microsoft commercial that has that ugly girl who says that if her boyfriend dumps her, she's going to write a song using "the world of software that runs on Windows™" not considering that she could do a better job of it using the software that comes free on a mac. :-?

 

[SPUY767]

I agree. I own an iPod (20Gb 4th generation with clickwheel), and I use iTunes for Windows almost exclusively. iTunes is excellent, I LOVE smart playlists. I love it so much that I spent 4 weeks properly re-tagging every mp3 and m4a file I own ~18Gb worth of files. It is QuickTime for Windows that sucks. It's very sluggish on even the fastest desktop systems around, and it takes up >80% CPU time. That's a different topic though. iTunes rules! Best digital audio jukebox I have ever had the pleasure of using. Thank you Apple, for bringing it to the PC!

Just a pointer, Windows seems to purposely slow down quicktime, I don't know what the deal is. Well, we all know what the deal is, and that is that microsoft wants to keep quicktime out of the marketplace by convincing windows users that it blows. On a side note, the only procs that I've seen this interesting behavior in are Intel, AMD's seem to run QT just fine.

 

[SPUY767]

If they get really pissed off with Apple ( for not budging on prices, for example ) they could choose to charge Apple 20% higher royalties than other online music stores.

And apple would happily pay it cause they don't give a damn about how much money they make on the music, but what they do care about is keeping the iTMS songs at $0.99 to keep the iPods moving.

 

[iMeowbot]

i think if MTV show guests start playing around with non-iPod devices, and even mention URGE, they can be sued for hidden publicity, and forbidden market tactics.

What a weird coincidence, only this week the EC began looking at eliminating that rule (Product placement is common on USAian TV.)

 

[steve_hill4]

Why YES! It is crap. WMV player pauses and gets choppy and is sloooow whenever you try to fast forward or reverse. You cant pick a specific time spot in anything like you can in Quicktime, It only support wmv format, you cant edit and the interface is horrible. And why would you buy music from one place that you need to buy a third party plugin to re-encode, then convert all the while losing quality for $2 a pop when you can just get it for a dollar and it plays??? Its so obvious that Microsoft is hoping that some of the MTV "cool" rubs off on them like one of the previous posters had said. And thanks for the "news alert" on the Flip4mac app Mr Cronkite. Better get the word out!!

Also, what's the betting it is 64kbps WMA? It has been showed time and time again that at 128kbps Ogg comes out on/near the top, followed by AAC, with ATRAC3 and WMA fighting it out for last place. If that's the result at 128kbps, compress that down again and let people pay the same as through the iTMS. When will people realise the con that is WMA? Few encode to it by choice, fewer download it by choice. Lots look at Creative as holding twice as much as an iPod, but when the differences are explained properly, they seriously start to consider an iPod instead. So these people aren't bothered about the model itself, just what it holds. If they provided better quality WMA, or even Ogg, to download, people would get no storage benefit, but might consider it fairer to compare and decide Creative.

It seems that the consumers seem to trust the mp3 manufacturers more to provide content than trust the record companies, traditional record stores and those who appear to be wanting to cash in, (usually people like MTV and Microsoft who have loose links to the service on both sides).

 

[Peace]

Here's an example of how this "could" lower iTunes market share.
Yesterday I took my brother to K-Mart..That's right..K-Mart..But anyway..
I was looking around the area where they sell DVD's and stuff and a 20 something walks up to the clerk and asks her "Do you have iPods?".The clerk responds "No.Sorry".The girl then quickly says "Well,do you have MP3 players?"
.The clerk responds "yes,over there".The girl then goes over and buys one.

Impulse shopping.That's where it's gonna hurt Apple.
But on the bright side I saw my Doctor yesterday and he told me he switched from a PeeCee to a new G5 iMac.And he loves it..Unfortunatly now he will be sending me email everytime he has a question about Tiger..
I should charge him $125 like he does me. hehehe

 

[Super Dave]

I think a bit of competition will be good. If I was Apple I would be very worried. M$ haven't even tried to make a dent in this market yet but when they do I think we will all soon know about it.

Microsoft's in a Catch 22. If they sell their own player they alienate their partners. If they don't, their partners will continue to make crap, simply because they're stupid.

I'm not suggesting that Microsoft would make a better player. Likely they would find a way to pooch it up. What I am saying though is that all of Microsoft's hardware partners suck. What are they gonna do?

David

 

[Rantipole]

Why would MTV have a music store? Do they have something to do with music?

 

[freeny]

But on the bright side I saw my Doctor yesterday and he told me he switched from a PeeCee to a new G5 iMac.And he loves it..Unfortunatly now he will be sending me email everytime he has a question about Tiger..
I should charge him $125 like he does me. hehehe

You definately should! Perhaps a trade for nice cleaning is in store?

My wife got our stock broker to switch after turning him on to aapl stock. hes 80 years old and had stayed away from tech stocks due to his lack of knowledge on the subject. He advised against our purchase but was delighted after the stock almost doubled in 3 months. He still is against the stock but was intrigued to the products once he saw the overwealming interest in apple.

 

[stunna]

People will buy what ever their friends use and what their tech friends tell them are the best products

I think MS is really making this store for complete cross platform domination
imagine taking your mp3 player to your friends house and it automatically syncs up with XBOX 360 on your friends windows media center, then that same device also streams your email their too.
I think it falls under the idea of Bill Gates vision information from the clouds

 

[cwedl]

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?

In my my mind, Microsoft hasn't won yet, (apart microsoft office)

 

[stunna]

No company has won
No company will ever win
this is a continuous battle

 

[billyboy]

I think Apple has won the game of digital music in the Western World, and MS is maybe looking to pick up scraps here and there before they "branch out" to their mass markets in Asia and South America. Thats quite a long term investment, and in the land of pirates, good luck.

I dont get the iPod phenomenon any more btw. For home entertainment the tiny mac mini has started to get good as an affordable and small addition to your home computing set up. And for portable storage you can pick up usb non mains powered external 80GB drives for not a lot of money. Roads seem to be starting to lead back to Apple's computers - I guess the halo effect is in motion.