Are iTunes the Future of Music?

[Brittany]

WebProWorld Members,

Let's venture into the world of online advertising for a moment, shall we?

If it's shock value you want, look no further than the current index page of www.apple.com. The theme of their current campaign is "Hell Froze Over" -- referring to the recent launch of a Windows version of their acclaimed iTunes music service. This disproves naysayers' beliefs that record labels would never give usage rights to the larger Windows market.

Hopefully, this just shows that the recording industry is at least trying to keep up with the latest technology, and is willing to change with the times.

Read a detailed article here (http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/10/16.12.shtml).

What do you think of Apple's current advertising campaign?

Is iTunes the future for music? Should Steve Jobs have kept it Mac-exclusive?

Have you tried iTunes yet? If so, what did you think?

[flood6]

I was just thinking about this myself. I saw a thread about this on another forum, and I have to say, "no". If apple was going to do this, they should have done it months ago.

Napster (http://www.napster.com) is re-launching as a legit service in a few days. Everybody with a computer has heard of napster, and from what I've seen so far, they are going to be dropping a lot of cash on the promotion of the "re-opening". Couple that with the so-called "cool-factor" of napster, and PC users inherent distrust of apple products (and vice-versa) and I think you will have apple only getting a small share of this market.

If apple had done this even a few months ago, they would have had little to no serious competition. They missed their chance.

[J_Paul]

I use iTunes for windows and so far it's pretty cool.

I really like the interface, but I've always been a fan of MAC graphics.

It works well and keeps everything organized very easily. It also has some great radio stations.

You can check what tracks to play which ones to burn easily create play lists. It's everything you would want in a music media package.

Hey Brittany, where was this program the other day when I was encoding the songs for Shanghai's performance??????

=========

Problem Areas...

With converting MP3, watch out.
You'd better make sure that your disks are in good condition. Perhaps it's a windows problem, but iTunes kept crashing when I was trying to convert a cd I had been listening to earlier in the day, but had a few surface damages. On all other cd's it did just fine.

Visualizer
The visualizer isn't worth having.

Crash.
If it freezes for some reason you have to start the program.

[Brittany]

Okay, so I've been using this program for a day now, and I think I might be addicted.

From what I've seen, it is fabulous, although not flawless. It does have its bugs. I encountered the "freeze" problem J_Paul was talking about, and had to restart the program a few times.

Overall, though, I recommend iTunes, especially for the online radio stations. I was impressed by the wide variety of music, and the sound quality -- it works wonders for a slow day at the office or a late-night house party.


Hey Brittany, where was this program the other day when I was encoding the songs for Shanghai's performance??????

LOL! I think the question is: Where was your internet connection???

Getting back to the other question at hand -- "Is iTunes the Future for Music?" -- As flood6 mentioned, the competition is fierce. It will be interesting to see how the re-launch of Napster goes, and whether that shapes the future for other programs such as KaZaA... Online music has had a strong past, and it could have an even stronger future.

What do you think? Did Apple miss their chance?

[Brittany]

Here is an article (http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/business/industries/computers_and_internet/7054672.htm) from the St. Paul Pioneer, pointing out a few "cons" (such as the limited search function) and further discussing some of Apple's competition, Napster and MusicMatch.

[sudhani]

Getting back to the other question at hand -- "Is iTunes the Future for Music?" -- As flood6 mentioned, the competition is fierce. It will be interesting to see how the re-launch of Napster goes, and whether that shapes the future for other programs such as KaZaA... Online music has had a strong past, and it could have an even stronger future.

What do you think? Did Apple miss their chance?

Napster did create ripples in the US$35 billion music industry, when it launched its service. Now, the music industry is reacting to what Napster and its clones have done to them. All the onlline music companies (projected at US$7 billion by 2005) are just trying to "define a new business model". And the recording companies, like all major companies do, are trying bet on any solution offored to them. I see the online music effotrs like the relaunch of Napster, iTunes etc,. are just trying to come out with solution .... but not the complete solution.

Remember why Napster was a huge success? it gave us "100% free" and "100% owned" music. But, none of the business models offer the same level of service.

Where are we heading now? I still foresee another solution thats 100% free and 100% owned. This discussion is going to continue till we see such a solution

Did i go a bit off track? ....

[J_Paul]

Here's an interesting article I received this morning

ITUNES FOR WINDOWS LANDS APPLE SITE A MILLION HITS
Apple¹s Web site has been inundated with visitors since the launch of iTunes for Windows, according to a Net research company. Nielsen/ NetRatings reports that during the week ending October 19 ...

http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/display_news.cfm?NewsID=3385