 Friday, 6 June 2003
 iTunes Store report
Fascinating (to me) report from an independent music seller on meeting with Apple about getting into the iTunes Store: CD Baby reports on iTunes meeting re: indy music. [Gnutella News via Interesting People]
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hit [songs].
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format...
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99 [for complete-album purchases]. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* Top-seller charts on Apple only reflect the last 24 hours. (IDEA FOR INDIES: get all your friends to buy at once!)
* THEY PAY EVERY MONTH!
* 10 million customers have opted-in to receive a "New Music" email from Apple every Tuesday... Personally, I'd like to know why some albums aren't available in their entirety (missing one or more tracks). Surely it's a conscious choice rather than a technical issue, but I don't understand it.
Examples: Genesis' Hits collection lacks 2 tracks, including the re-recorded 'The Carpet Crawlers 1999' (which I'd love to get on its own). Steve Martin's comedy albums also lack random tracks... there are many, many such 'partial albums', and it's a real flaw IMO.
2 comment(s)
45% of all songs have been bought as an album.
This makes the whole iTunes thing even more perplexing to me. eMusic is $10/month, for all you can download. No DRM, no nothing -- just straight MP3s. Yes, the artist selection probably isn't as wide as it is on Apple's site -- but they've got quite a few big names, and if you're into indie, punk, or goth, they've got Matador, they've got Epitath, they've got _all_ the old Beggars Banquet and 4AD stuff. I've been so busy downloading stuff that I haven't had time to listen to most of it.
Why would you pay per song when you can get buffet-style pricing and no DRM to boot?
Subscription vs. a la carte pricing coupled with the snazzy iTunes interface accounts for the oddity, I'd bet. Rational or not, many people (including me) hesitate before subscribing to something on an ongoing basis.
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