Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Music => Topic started by: wolverine_men on October 23, 2003, 06:37:09 AM
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iTunes for windows has finally been released by Apple. I subscribe to lockergnome newsletter. Toady's issue had a few reader reviews for the iTunes service. Apparently everyone seems to be satisfied. So what's the problem you ask? Well there is a tiny problem. Actually it's not so tiny and it's called The New and Improved(and legal)NAPSTER service. Napster has a couple of things going for it.
a) It has the largest collection of music anywhere
b) It has better deals on offer. They will sell individual songs for 99 cents each and albums for 9.95$. They also have monthly"Eat all you can"subscriptions for 9.95$.
Napster was purchased by Roxio Inc. after it had filed for bankruptcy. This is what Roxio's chief executive Chris Gorog had to say about the iTunes service-"If I were Apple, I would hate to compete with Napster. We have a larger catalogue of songs. Our service has more breadth. And there's no brand more powerful than ours in online music".
Other contenders in the market are Dell Inc., AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody service, privately held companies like MusicMatch and BuyMusic.com. Even Amazon Inc. is planning a foray into the market.
Who's gonna snatch away the greater share of the pie? It's too early to comment on that yet. But as of now, if all you want is quality service, try iTunes.
Vikram
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Is this a press release? An opinion? I can't tell.
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I've heard Microsoft will also be making a play into the market.
I, personally, don't care how it plays out, but I suspect that it will be very much like the difference between Media Play, Walmart, and bmgmusic.com. Just a bunch of different retailers with different deals, appealing to different people for different reasons.
I'm really excited about the idea that I can go to the web and purchase the one song that I like for $0.99, rather than having to pay $15-$20 for a whole CD. And it's legal, so no more pathetic rationalizations with my conscience.
Hopefully this will get the RIAA of our collective backs.
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Hopefully this will get the RIAA of our collective backs.
Oh like THAT'll happen. I think the RIAA has made a job out of being a monkey on the back. Goodness knows they were never representing any artists.
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No-it wasn't a press release or an opinion. It was just an honest review of things to come. Although I would've posted a press release had Roxio been willing to pay me for it.
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The annoying thing about the new napster is--according to the reviews I've read--they're planning to charge $1 to download a song, then another $1 to burn it to CD's or move it to portables. That makes it a far worse deal, in my mind, though the audio format is supposed to be superior.
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There isn't much difference to most people between 128 khz and 256 khz. So to most people its just stupid to need something that high of quality. Unless your a real stickler for how it sounds (and you wouldn't keep something you downloaded) you'll take the lower priced one. Even if that means losing that "quality" that you can't really hear unless you have superior speakers and ears the size of a mallet.
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Well there are a lot of alternatives out there. I think the i-tunes service is the best out there, at least for now.
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My wife has declared she wants an ipod
This means that I can take this as a spring board to get some expensive kit for Christmas. She gets her iPod, I get a new mobo and a cable modem. Everyone's happy.
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Kirsty wants an Ipod! does she know how much they cost????
Well if you want it, talk to me I can get a federal govt discount.
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Well you can always download songs for free using Kazaa. You can burn it on a CD or do whatever the heck you want with it.
PS: I am not concurring Kazaa file sharing service(or any file sharing service for that matter) in any way.
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Kazaa is annoying. Assholes use it. They rename stuff so instead of, say, Trigun episode 6 you get bestiality pr0n. Not a happy thing i tell you.
Plus: Its ungodly slow.
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You should be using Kazaa Lite then. Easier, faster, no spyware.
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of couse 90% of the music on Kazaa has been disabled in some way and is full of clicks beeps and sometimes just dead space.
Or the songs are horrible in quality and seriously damaged.
Not to mention the near constant assault of viruses and the mislabled files.
Oh and the fact your breaking the law and stealing.
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eh, you over-rate the dangerous of Kazaa I think. I've had some bad files, but, at least on mp3s, if you pay attention to the bitrate youc an get a decent recording. THe worst I've had is that a lot of idiots think that the Cure performed "Melt With You." I've nto gotten a virus, but perhaps that's because I use AV anyway, but I don't recall ever finind one in a kazaa file.
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Plus Napster does not have a signifigantly larger catalog, apple has 400000 songs Napster has 500000 thats a drop in the music bucket and moot because apple has been steadily adding songs since it was introduced for Mac (50,000+ a month or so)
Apple has books, napster doesn't, Apple hasn't added its independent music yet although they do have hundreds of independent labels signed up now. so when all the new songs are added I see apple having about the same amount of content. And the all you can download for under 20 bucks will bite Napster in its ass if they dont make the cash thats expected and apple does (which its already doing) then the lables will pull their music and napster will fold.
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I doubt the labels will pull their music. I'm pretty sure that any way to make a buck is viewed as good to the labels.
I really disagree with the Napster $1 for anything you want to do with the song deal. And it looks like Apple is using "mp4" technology, is Napster really using anything higher than that?
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they will if the new napster allows users to have unlimited downloading for 9.95 like they want. Why because they will lose money.
How much music could a kid with a cablemodem download in a day? Way more than $9 buck worth of product I can tell you. Even the casual user on a dial up connection could download tons of songs in a month.
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What is the actual value of the music though:
There is little material cost. You don't have to have a disc and a jewel case for every kid making a buy. You don't actually "lose" anything when you make a sale. If the extremely low price summons LOTS more users, they making money yet. Their biggest problem right now is actually branding. Apple has a more legit appearance and is bigger in the news.
I think this still has to be played out.
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I have no complaints to register against Kazaa lite. It has given me so many good books to read, songs to listen to, games to play.....the list is endless.
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Bandwidth isn't cheap. A while ago there was a site, gamingforce audio, which had full videogame albums for download. In three days, they transferred 4 terrabytes of data, and had to shut down. They wern't making money, but a lot of songs can be downloaded in a month. On dialup, I've collected 11 CD's of Mp3 music from various sources, mostly OverClocked ReMix. There's about 200 tracks on each one, and it took 2 years. Multiply that by Cable...
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true, it's not, but shutting down over it is primarily a problem with poor planners who have no idea what they need. I think that iTunes and Napster know what they need, having a lot of experience. Plus, it's cheaper than maintaining a merchant web site AND a warehouse AND sales staff. And it's MUCH cheaper than maintain ing an actual store.
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I think the major players in the online music market don't have to worry about bandwidth problems. These problems are typically faced by unexperienced start-ups who do not accomodate adequate planning into their vision. All these players are like the big fish whose only competition is each other- not the bandwidth.
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I calmly and quitely walked into my Yahoo! mail and what ad was I presented with today? Not the one of the little car turning right all the time that I could watch for hours, no my friends. It was of Napster. And it said Napster 2.0 is here. And like anything else thats so persuasive I decided to download, and now, now I install it to the forbidden zone upon my hard disk. And now I wait for it to do something.
It is riddled with stuff. I tried making a username and such and said I need Java turned on. And I do believe it is. So I can go no further. The layout is riddled with marks of Roxio, since that is who helped make it I guess. And there is a disgustingly similar feel to Apples iTunes. So turn your head, and continue to watch that car volcano cowboys.
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you didn't know that Roxio bought the Napster name...
yeah thats right the owners of Napster sold it to Roxio a while ago. dont confuse this service with the older cooler one.
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I knew Napster wasn't going to be the cool toy it was a few years ago. I just don't remember ever hearing that Roxio bought it. But whatever. It isn't that great.
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Read the first post gem. Roxio owns their ***
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Mod: Apple is using what they call 'Mp4's,' but it's just a gimmic. The encoding style is an old familiar form, called 'AAC,' which actually creates music of a slightly lower quality than an MP3. However, to the average person, it's apperantly not that noticeable.
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its not really a gimmick since they said it was acc from the start (every place you see mp4 theres a slash and ACC after it)
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it's still basically a gimmick. How many people do you think know what ACC is?
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Well lets count, no? Now if I count every TWG Forum member once (I was thinking twice, but that'd be cheating). That's 115 right there. Then I add in every person on my AIM buddy list, thats another 119. So lets say that in each of those companies only one person knows what ACC is. That's what, 3 maybe 4. Now we've got a grand total of 238. Now I'll add another million to account for the geeks in America/Europe. And then to top it off lets say the entire population of Japan, which adds another 50,000. So our final grand total is at 1,050,238 people who know what ACC means. The more you know.
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The ACC? Everybody knows that stands for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Go Wake Forest!!
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Well, I still don't know what AAC stands for. But for a buck I'm not too worried about quality as long as it doesn't buzz, cut out or end in the middle.
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Australian Antique Cockateels
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Really. Oh, that makes so much sense now. ::)
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If the Cockateels are antique, they'd most likely be long dead. As an Aussie, I am qualified to say this.