“The idea that a credible rival to iTunes could appear from nowhere and compete head-to-head with Apple (as Microsoft has clearly failed to do) seems far fetched to say the least. But never mind, it’s happening,” Robin Bloor writes for IT-Director.
MacDailyNews Take: No, it’s not.
Bloor continues, “The company that is presumptuous enough to believe it can do this is Omnifone and, given the reports that emerged from the recent 3GSM conference in Barcelona, the press believes it too.”
MacDailyNews Take: Because most of them can barely read press releases, much less analyze what’s in them.
Bloor continues, “Omnifone has already sewn up deals with 23 mobile network operators, that have subscribers in 40 countries, giving it a total customer base of 690m subscribers. That’s a potential customer base of course—not all of those subscribers will choose to use Omnifone…”
MacDailyNews Take: Hardly any subscribers will choose to use Omnifone.
Bloor continues, “You can do a blow-by-blow comparison of iTunes and [Omnifone’s] MusicStation, but no matter how you toss it up and catch it, it is difficult to believe that MusicStation isn’t going to take a big share of the digital music download market.”
MacDailyNews Take: MusicStation isn’t going to take a big share of the digital music download market. Believe it.
Bloor continues, “A big reason why the Music industry is backing Omnifone is the music by subscription model it operates. The idea is that you pay a regular subscription charge as part of your phone bill and you can have ‘all you can eat’ in terms of music. (The initial roll out will offer 1.2 million songs). The music companies tend to think like this: With iTunes the average user buys around 20 tracks a year—equivalent to maybe 2 or 3 CDs and generating $20 in revenue. With a subscription model at, say, $3.50 per month, the revenues per person will above $40 (twice as much).”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “nerdbrain” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: The music by subscription model is a proven failure. People want to own their music, not rent it. Stop paying Omnifone and you’ll have nothing. Additionally, Bloor’s numbers do not even come close to adding up. Let’s do something interesting and look at the actual facts: Omnifone’s subscription service will be £1.99 (US$3.90) per week, not month. So, it actually costs US$16.90 per month on average or $202.80 per year. In other words, Omnifone is 70% more per month than the beleaguered Napster subscription failure that currently charges (US$9.95/month).
The mobile phone networks are suckers because they, like every iTunes Store victim on the planet, want to control the customer instead of giving customers the control they want — even to the point of stupidly buying into this repackaged, over-priced, proven failure that’s called “Omnifone” this time instead of “Napster.”
Apple gives customers what they want while other outfits want so badly to reap a weekly/monthly payment ad infinitum that they keep trying to ignore reality. The mobile phone companies are deluding themselves with visions of recurring weekly charges that simply aren’t going to exist in worthwhile numbers because people don’t want what they’re trying to sell no matter how badly they dream of selling it.
Related articles:
BBC incorrectly reports Omnifone music subscription price (plus: why the phone networks are suckers) – February 13, 2007
Omnifone to challenge Apple’s iPhone, iTunes Store – February 12, 2007
Beleaguered Napster hires UBS to evaluate possible company sale – September 18, 2006
Beleaguered Napster circles bowl, subscribers drop 7 percent, Gorog won’t rule out sale of company – August 03, 2006
Free, legal and ignored: Mac- and iPod-incompatible beleaguered Napster dying at colleges – July 06, 2006
Napster does the math: layoffs commence with 10-percent of workforce lopped off – January 25, 2006
EMI Music Chairman: Music subscription services like Napster and Rhapsody haven’t beeen huge – January 23, 2006
Report: Napster executives do the math, consider selling or shutting down, layoffs imminent – January 16, 2006
Do the math: Napster posts $13.6 million second-quarter loss – November 02, 2005
Napster: the only thing missing is the sock puppet – August 04, 2005
Napster, other Windows Media-based music services ‘chasing a niche opportunity’ – June 29, 2005
SmartMoney: Napster is a snooze, gushing money and renting music is un-American anyway – July 06, 2005
Napster To Go Soon? Reports $24.3 million net loss on $17.4 million net revenue – May 11, 2005
Napster is a joke – April 05, 2005
Users thwart Napster To Go’s copy protection; do the music labels realize the piracy potential? – February 15, 2005
Why ‘Napster To Go’ will flop – February 03, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
Napster 2.0 posts US$15 million relaunch loss – February 08, 2004
It’s so apt that the spelling of analyst is like it is since we all know what they’re full of.
Is it possible to crash before you launch? Let’s watch…
Too expensive, and renting music is not what people want. Music is a personal thing which you must always have on hand. Not something you listen to once and toss away never to listen to it again. It just doesn’t work like that. To pay over $200 in a year and then if you decide to stop your subcription you lose everything. To me that is a very expensive waste of money.
No it’s not; yes it is; no it’s not; yes it is…..
Does that sound eerily familiar? Like maybe something we might have said when we were like, 8!!
MDN has history, facts, and reality on their side and is therefore correct.
bloor is not an analyst, he’s a publicist… he’s all over omnifone like a rash. no story.
not entirely unbiased… on the payroll do you think? :
“Long time associates of mine and software industry heavyweights of long standing Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight have been nurturing a start-up called Omnifone. Now it has product and, technically, it’s very impressive….”
http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Robin_Bloor/2006/5/microsoft_comes_out_fighting_omnif_.html
I feel like I’ve heard this sort of story about a hundred times this year.
Even Middlebromfman knows this will not work. Way too expensive.
The carrier with this service in Canada has a phone with an FM transmitter so you can hear this rented music on your car stereo. What battery life does that phone have?
Anyone with a high school education will figure out this scam the first time they pay their cell phone bill.
I’ve got a Sony Ericsson phone which plays music. When I first bought it I fitted a big memory card and filled it up with loads of music and my phone will play that music.
Unfortunately, it’s such a hassle to get it to play music that I’ve long since given up trying. It not enough to have a feature built-in. What matter is having the feature implemented in a way that makes it useable. Sony Ericsson have one of the better user interfaces and I reckon it’s pretty cumbersome to use, so heaven help anybody trying to use a less ‘friendly’ phone than that.
Omnifone has three major problems. One is the attitudes of the phone companies, the second is the subscription model and the third is that existing mobile phones are not sufficiently well designed to make playing music a simple process.
Have Omnifone ever announced exactly how much money they will be passing on to the labels and artists ? Apple makes no secret that about 70% of iTS money is passed on. I’ve never seen equivalent figures for Napster, nor for Onmifone. Does anybody know the figures ?
Not to mention, the service is only available on your PHONE…what if you want to have a party at your flat/apartment/house but you don’t have any music because you spent $200 a year on your phone having music.
Reveal your non-DRM iTunes songs in the Finder. Open the song in QuickTime Player. Save as 3GGP (crap quality, but tiny, and acceptable for phone speakers). Bluetooth to your phone. Play on the phone speakers using the phone’s media player. Buy tunes once only, play on any device.
Our Tunes. Your not getting my money again.
The reason these expensive cell phone features like song and ring-tone downloads make any money is because a lot of stupid teens and preteens buy them and a lot of over indulgent parents pay for them.
Their reach is very limited and their growth potential is much lower than a system that makes financial sense.
If my memory serves me correct, what you’d call a “UFO” the Spaniards call “OMNI.”
In this case, the acronyms stand for Unrealizable Fantasies Organization, or in Spanish, “Organizacion Mantiene Ni Idea” – [clueless].
1) The most popular digital jukebox in the planet is the iPod.
2) An iPhone is, among many other things, an iPod.
3) There is no (3) when you think about it.
MacDailyNews – the FOX news channel of Mac websites.
This site and the stupid MDN takes that are ditched up article after article gives us Mac users a bad name. Don’t dare say sometime that isn’t 100% positive about Apple or the idiot who writes for this site will come down on you.
Chill out, dude. MDN is one part news, two parts polemic and three parts entertainment (the polemic and entertainment kinda blend). If you want straight news, you probably should be looking somewhere else. If you want to revel in Appleland and like to pillory idiotic analysts, journalists, and Windows users…well, Welcome Home.
Seems that Robin Bloor’s piece is more of a plaintive squeaking sales pitch reeking with delusion, ignorance, and greed than an objective review of the subscription music business model. One thing Robin neglected to mention is that a subscription service can raise the cost of subscriptions, thus giving them absolute control of access to the music and enhancing opportunities for “extorting” the consumer. With iTunes; however, if music prices increase excessively users will refuse to buy the product. This will drive the prices down, keeping the cost of music reasonable and permitting wider distribution and enjoyment of music. Should the business fail the consumer is left with nothing but memories and buyer’s remorse. The subscription model is industry-centered, iTunes is consumer-centered. In addition, I don’t understand the logic of Omniphone copying Napster’s business model and thinking that providing a similar service and a more exorbitant price is a successful strategy.
I wonder if Robin is fearful of losing his “investment” in a subscription digital music service or if he is simply expressing his animosity and envy of iTunes. I think that Robin’s intent is to encourage as many people as possible to sign contracts with Omniphone before Europe gets a taste of iTunes.
I almost suspect a little-known subsidiary of Apple, tucked away in a former Soviet Union back-water, is publishing these subscription-based rumors to keep some countering hope alive.
It’s all over.
Better to confound, and confuse than to confront.
As much as I agree with MDN, I also have to agree with “toonie”
I was about to go all 3rd grader on MDN, too, until I read their ending take. I think they nailed it.
Some of you guys have your heads so far up Apple’s a**e you can’t see. Apple get’s a little competition, you lot knee-jerk into hating it, then the ‘clever’ ones amonst you try work out the justifications for your embedded belief. Don’t you have the capacity for objective debate and analysis? How about this. There are 490 mobile networks in the world and just one of their infrastructure projects costs more than the entire market cap of Apple. Combined they dwarf your idol. Wouldn’t write them off if I were you they control the delivery of one billion phones a year, Nokia make and ship a million phones a DAY. Makes 80 million iPods look a bit kindergarten eh?
I posted a comment on his site when I read the article from MacSurfer. I basically posited the same questions that MDN asks or postulates. So far, no response.
Everybody wants to be an “iPod killer” or an “ITMS killer.” It’s hard to watch!
Just yesterday I stood dumbfounded as a local store owner spouted on and on
about how he’d just gotten in on the “ground floor” of the “next big thing”
that will totally destroy Apple. In your dreams, sucker!
MDN is also great at attracting clueless leftard trolls, who can’t seem to understand this brave new world where liberalism doesn’t control all the major means of news dissemination. (Wake up, guys. When Islamists talk about waging jihad, they’re serious. They’re not just stupid brown men that you bigots can dismiss.) I get more laughs out of reading their drunken fulminations than anything else on the site except for the MDN takes.
@ Bonesy
I guess you are signing up for a subscription then
@ Bonesy
Doesn’t matter how many phones get “shipped” by this company or that company – if the feature they’re hoping to sell is too cumbersome to use with any great effectivness or is too costly to the pocketbook for the average joe, then it’s more likely that average joe won’t use it in great numbers, and it won’t make the companies the kind of money they were expecting. Huge potential doesn’t equal guaranteed results – not even for Apple. Seems pretty simple to me.
Music subscription services are the future, but not until Apple makes it happen. Don’t get tunnel vision. Right now buying your music is the prefered method, but that’s only because we have been conditioned to this from the past. The temptation is to think this will continue unabated in the future, but here is why you would be wrong.
A revolution is taking place in online media purchases and iTunes is leading the way. iTunes is going beyond online distribution models like Amazon because it’s using rich client software to create added benefits, like iPod syncing and content control (customization). It started with music, but iTunes now has TV, movies, books on tape, pod casts, music videos, and more is coming.
Now, if you buy into this (no pun intended), soon you will have quite a large quantity of data that needs to be backed up. Terabytes worth, once you start adding HD content. How will you manage this? Buying external hard drives is an option, but too complex for most people. Besides, if your house burns down you will loose it all.
Enter Time Machine. Time Machine will allow you to back up all your iTunes media using your .Mac account on Apple’s servers. Apple will just create a list of pointers to their mega database and if you loose your data you can just download it again. Soon, .Mac will become an annual service that will include many features, but off-site backup will be one the big ones.
Now, soon iTunes movies will be 1080p, but downloading and amassing a large library of 1080p content is impractical, and add to that the fact that most people don’t want to own movies they only watch once. Downloaded movies right now is just a otpional way of consuming media, and it’s being sold as low quality resolution limits the way you can consume it. Apple will eventually offer a download subscription service for renting movies. Netflix and Blockbuster will force them to do this, otherwise downloading movies on iTunes will have a very limited reach. This subscription service will be tied into your .Mac account, which you will be paying for as an annual fee.
Soon, people will be canceling their satalite and cable services in favor of the download model. Your monthly cable bill will be replaced by a monthly .Mac bill. Apple will become the new media distribution model. Are you starting to get it? You will accept this because it’s cost effective and convienent. Apple will eventually allow you to consume the whole iTunes library for a monthy fee and that will include music.
So, right now your purchasing music, but in a few years you will be renting it because it will be cheaper. Apple will offer the flat out best media consumption model bar none. You will be able to watch or listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, and wherever you want.
Still don’t understand this whole “iTunes DRM locks you into iPods, unplayable on other players, blah blah….” Why doen’t anybody understand it’s JUST LIKE BUYING A CD! You simply rip a CD, then rip it back in as whatever you want. I’ve bought 100 or so iTunes songs the past 2 years, and own ZERO AAC files. All high quality MP3’s. Spread all over the shared macs and pc’s at work, 4 ipods, and several macs at home. Is the general public really this stupid/paranoid/biased..? Or is it a combo of that and the fact that Apple won’t, (or can’t due to it’s agreements w/ the RIAA) advertise this fact better.
Too right I will. Million plus songs on the one device I have with me all the time. Access new music wherever I am, share music instantly with my friends wherever they are. £1.99 is much less than a pack of cigarettes. No brainer. iPods are outdated and get left in the drawer. The iPhone isn’t available and even so you can only get new music in your home and you have to pay for it before you know if you like it. I want it all and I want it now. Thats our generation buddie – it’s a comms revolution!
“Is it possible to crash before you launch? Let’s watch…”
Joe Biden sure tried…
OK, this is really disturbing. Sure, I probably read it wrong, but it sounds like the music subscription is just folded up into the service contract, and you pay whether you use any music, or not.
Its also unclear just how easy the UI is to navigate and master. Meaning even if someone wanted to use the music feature, it may not be that easy to get to. The record labels will laugh all the way to the bank on that one… People roped into paying a subcription fee, no way to opt out, and most won’t even use it. And since ringtones weren’t even mentioned, you can bet they will cost big bucks for each one, not included on the subscription price plan of course. Oh well, plenty of windows sheep will flock, as will some of the rabid anti apple people.
Sounds like a zuney deal to me
MacMental has it mostly right. Paying to own a single digital track is a hang up from the days of physical media. Physical music products like albums were an optimal use of the music rendering platform – the record player. Same with CDs. However, as far as music on the move is concerned, the pay per track model does not optimise the capabilties of the music rendering platform – the mobile phone (something even Apple agrees with). The platform can access all the music wherever you are. BTW Omnifone say that the playlists, music, friends, news etc on the phone is merely a local cache of the master copy on the server. Sounds like they got there first MacMental – isn’t that cool?
Do you think that’s the reason for Apple’s iPhone with iTunes and internet connectivity? Do you think that Apple wants to expand the iTunes business model to the mobile consumer?
Regardless of the technically mundane methods of transferring music, it’s the fact that consumers want to own their music that makes iTunes more successful than the subscription model. I think that you have purposely ignored the most important part of digital music services and that is providing the individual consumer products at a fair price when they want it and where they want it.
It seems that Apple’s competitors are compelled not to copy the iTunes model even though the subscription model has not shown to be commercial successful (e.g. Napster). Maybe Omniphone fears the public ridicule of mimicking Apple more than the desire to generate a handsome profit.
Well, Bonsey, how exactly do you enjoy digital music?
@ darknite – you want to see the interface take a look at the demos on http://www.omnifone.com
I think Napster rocks, but I would prefer it on the phone! Logic states that I get a MUCH BETTER music experience than you cos I can listen to anything anytime and immediately I think of it or see it. KILLER! Check mate. Pay per track is for record player owners. Get with the comms generation dude.
All these reports of the service costing $3.50 per MONTH reminds me of this story about Verizon:
http://consumerist.com/consumer/asinine/transcript-verizon-doesnt-know-how-to-count-220723.php
Or check it out here
Ownership a thing of the past? It’s called human nature and basic economics. Do you rent or prefer to rent your clothes, car, bicycle, house, shoes, appliances, computer, iPod, tools, furniture? If you do, you’re an idiot and a lonesome idiot, to boot! Ownership gives you financial control of the things you want and it is often much less expensive to own than to rent.
Even if you archived your music at a remote site you would still own it. Also, people who use a personal computer to purchase online music stores are quite capable of archiving their music files at home, if they choose, whether they use magnetic or optical media. I suspect as long-term storage become less expensive the practical use of “remote archival services” will lose usefulness and popularity.
@ Bonesy
1 million songs at an average 3 mins per song is 5.7 years of non-stop music. 3/4 I maybe don’t want to hear.
Makes perfect sense to me if you don’t have a life…
I would rather buy my music on cd, rip it to iTunes and play it through a set of powered reference speakers and shuffle it because I KNOW i like everything I will hear. I don’t have an iPod and I don’t buy music online cause the fidelity sucks… You can’t beat a cd. But I’m a purist.
You say iPod sales thus far is small potatoes compared to Nokia cell phones… Who gives a sh$t.
Wander arould any major city and you will still notice the white earbuds and wires before you’ll ever notice the cellphone by brand. They are all me-too products that offer little differentiation.
Anything Apple does gets great press lately because people are finding out now that when products are made with the end-user-experience as the driving force, you end up with a truely enjoyable product that makes your life simpler. KISS
Over-complicated gadgets that are designed to protect the content-providers profit will never create a buzz because the end-user will feel exploited. Is it no wonder the Labels love the subscription model… Profit Profit Profit. And all the user ever gets is an invoice every month FOREVER assuring more profit profit profit. And when you end your subscription… POOF oops where did all my stuff go…. Apple understands this one fact… People love their stuff… buy it, insure it, and buy some more of it.
Just My thoughts on Music… Macintosh Rules!!!
The Omnifone interface sucks compare to iPhone. Looks like your ship is sunk before its maiden voyage.
..unbelievable but true……..a group of small people have published a common revelation today:
“Dear populace. I just want you all to know I’m an assclown.” Robin Bloor, February 15, 2007
“To all… I just want you to know I’m an assclown, too, and I’m sorry for being a hit whore.” Rob Enderle, February 15, 2007
“May God help me. I’m an assclown, a worthless prick, faux-analyst and a hit whore.” John Dvorak, February 15, 2007
“I’m an assclown..Bills flunky and Steves monkey.” Dave Fester, February 15, 2007
I think, now, the world may be coming to an end. I’ve already kissed my own ass goodbye.
If you like Napster so much, why don’t you BUY it? Or do you prefer to RENT it?
There are a lot of younger people who don’t have any problem with renting, leasing, subscriptions etc. as long as they can ‘make the monthly payment’. This is why there is so much credit card dept in America.
Both. Prefer to rent though for community, discovery and instant gratification.
Heed the advice of Joe Blow, otherwise exist in perpetual state of indentured servitude and penury. It’s obvious that you have some serious emotional and maturity issues if you are willing to sacrifice long-term independence and freedom for immediate gratification.
Pay per view has been around for some time and I do think a percentage of people will subscribe.
I think most people prefer to buy and the success of iTunes has proven this in music.
Everytime I’m at Best Buy or Walmart there are tons of people going through the DVD’s looking to buy.
I personally have over 250 movies on DVD for my family and buy a couple a month. Beside the value of owning
there is something to be said about people wanting to collect their favorite movies and music.
My kids and I have usually watched each movie 2 to 3 times over the years sometimes more.
Video game sales have always also dwarfed over rentals.
The used movie and game market has taken off and places like EB Games and eBay are evident of this.
People also like to give games and movies as gifts, I guess you could buy someone a rental gift certificate but
it doesn’t have the impact.
I thnk subscription models are just niches.
Let me clarify. I believe at some point in the future Apple will offer unlimited access to all iTunes media content on a per montly basis. It will be an option, but for those who prefer to own, they will be able to do that too. I just beleive the cost benefit will be with the subscription model, and since most people will want this model for movies and TV shows, adding music will just be a value add.
Once people start accepting this, the whole “own” your media paradigm will change. There will be really no reason to own it. Your doing it already, you just dont think of it that way. Every month you pay a cable or satalite bill for rented media. You move to another city and you sign up for another service. You do it without really thinking about it. It’s just a utility bill like your gas or electricity. Apple will replace cable and satalite for access to media using .Mac, and this will also include your phone service. At some point your .Mac subscription will be just a monthly bill and Apple will include iTunes music access as a value add to keep your business. Music will just naturally blend into this and you won’t think twice about it.
Right now media consumption is fractured. For example, you might get TV from Time Warner, movies from Netflix, cell phone from Cingular, and music from iTunes. If Apple were to offer you a way to consoldate all of these into one monthly bill that was cheaper than all combined, would you go for it? So, if you are paying a single monthly bill for TV, movies, and phone service, why not add music too?
Something else to consider. Why is Apple against DRM? Because it will make this model so much more appealing because you can load your iTunes media on any device, take it with you wherever, consume it however, and whenever you want. No limitations. Apple will be making their money off of .Mac subscriptions not just the hardware as they are now.
Apple will still make awesome integrated hardware, but they will want your subscription money and DRM will work againt them with this.
Oh, about being deranged. I do rent my house and my car! It’s called a rental and a lease. As for everything else on your list, I own everything else because it’s disposable. Cloths and shoes wear out, computers become obsolete, ect. There is a fine line between owning a thing and renting a thing, and it’s usually cost.
A car is a perfect example. So you buy it or lease it. What’s the difference? If you buy it, by the time you finish paying for it your ready to sell it and get another one. So the only difference is when you buy you can customize it if you want and drive it more, but you pay for this freedom. If you lease it you pay less, get another car sooner, but have to drive it less and maintain it. These are trade offs depending on your needs. But the point is, whether it’s a lease payment or a car payment, you are still making monthly payments on a car for the rest of your life, unless your stinking rich and buy outright or flithy poor and drive something until it wont work anymore.
Your argument about music is that you own it to control it. And if you subscribe to music, and you stop the subscription you loose it all the argument goes; but you will just sign up somewhere else and get it all back! That’s why those who favor a subscription model believe they will succeed. Once people figure this out a subscription service actually makes sense. The problem with all these other services is they have no way of demonstrating this, Apple on the other hand is uniquely positioned to help people out of their “ownage” mentaltiy for reasons I stated earlier.
My argument basically boils down to this. Apple will get you into a subscription model because you already accept this with TV service, movie rental, and phone service. But since you will be using iTunes for all of these, music will just naturally flow into it. People are conditioned to own music right now and Apple is capitalizing on this, but soon that will change, and they will convince you renting it is better.
Hmmmm… sounds interesting…. I might use Omniphone 1 week a year…. for $3.90 I can listen to all the music I want in full tracks – then of course, I would stop paying after a week and buy all the ones I want from the iTunes store… I would never rent music except to try before I buy…. If I own it, I control it.
$3.90 a week? Over $200 a year? Just how long are people willing to pay that amount? I can buy about a CD a month at that rate, and I get to listen to it and rip tracks to whatever device I want for as long as there are drives capable or reading CD’s. Plus, I can give them away, lone them to friends, whatever. Way more flexibility than renting music. As soon as you stop paying, you lose access to everything.
I guess that’s okay if you’ve got the money to burn. Me, I’d rather own just about anything versus rent it. In almost every case I’ve come across so far, it costs less over the long run.
Just a quick comparison on a car (2007 Acura TSX 6-speed):
$32,564.40 to finance 100% at 5% interest for a 5 year loan
$27,267.00 for a 5 year lease
Now, if you plan on changing cars every five years and don’t go over the mileage limits, leasing may be a better option. If you keep the car for just one more year, though, purchasing it is a better deal. Keeping a car for any longer than that is even better, and this assumes the car has zero value when you’re done with it. If you keep the car in good shape, you’re probably better off purchasing it even if you only keep it for 5 years.
Or how about renting vs. owning your home:
Rent is gone, no tax deduction, nothing to show for it once you move.
Purchasing, any interest you pay is tax deductible, and generally speaking, your home value doesn’t go down. If you buy a $200,000 house, it’s usually worth more than what you paid for it after a few years. Vary rarely will you lose money on a home, where your rent is lost the moment you pay it, every time. On top of that, many times a mortgage is no more expensive than rent! I just don’t get why so many people piss away their money on rent when they can *own* a place for a lower monthly expense!
Hey here’s a funny thing. I just read that South Africa, which is one of MusicStation’s first rollouts, has almost no home desktops and there’s almost no broadband in the country. Apparently the only digital music there is mobile digital music. Means there’s no iTunes reach there. Corr, bet that gets Steve scratching his head. $500 device for the Soweto townships probably won’t work. Wonder if India or China share any similarities? 2.5 billion people between them? Might be worth investigating if the iPhone is to get any traction outside the States (abroad).
Don’t get me wrong guys, I think the iPhone looks stunning. And when it finally materialises I’ll probably get one cos I’m not short of a few cents. However not everyone can afford a Rolls-Royce and not every country has got roads – if the only issue with MusicStation is the price then it’s bound to come down. But I reckon it’s much better psotioned and aligned and it’s better distribution will ensure it eats the majority of the main market. Perhaps the Omnifone guys don’t care about flash expensive high-end handsets?
Hey sorry to bore you all, but I do find this an interesting subject. Would it not be true to say that:
1. Subscriptions services are harder to implement than pay per track?
2. Pay per track could be easily added to a subscription service?
3. Omnifone could easily offer a pay per track service too?
I think it comes down to handset reach and the number game therein. Good luck to all parties I think this is a great thing to watch. Let the battle commence!
Man, if the “Music Industry” is backing it, consumers are going to gobble it up for sure!
What? I’m not giving the music industry enough money?!?!?!?! OMFG!!!! Please, let me make it up to you by subscribing to your scheme to give you money!
Uh, douchebag, it strikes me that the math you lay out to explain how the music industry makes more $ is the same math many consumers will use to decide
that they DO NOT want it. Sure, you get a huge selection. However, even though 1.2 mill tracks are available, what portion of that actually appeal to a particular
consumer? So, the average consumer could spend their $20/month music budget on tracks they actually want to hear OR spend 2-3x that much to get hundreds
of thousands of tracks they will never listen to.
Tough one. Oh, but since you explained that the Music Industry will make more money this way, sure. Why don’t I just write a check now.
Bonesy,
Here is a question for you.
Why do the digital music retailers, with the exception of iTunes Store, and every cell phone provider on the planet have such a raging hard on for subscription services?
Here’s the answer.
If it takes hold, it’s a license to print money.
The service in Canada will be $20 CD per month or about $17 USD.
Oh that people were stupid enough to buy into it.
I hope you haven’t invested your life savings in this pipe dream Bonesy.
MacDailyNews Take: MusicStation isn’t going to take a big share of the digital music download market. Believe it.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but seriously… does ANYONE actually believe MDN’s obscenely biased opinions?
With 690million subscribers who might subscribe to musicstation, even if only 1% were to do so, that’s still 69million subscribers… Is that competition for iTunes? maybe not equivalent, but it’s certainly competition.
Also, MDN’s constant assessment that “People want to own their music, not rent it.” is based entirely on their biased opinion… Certainly many people, easily millions, if not tens of millions are perfectly content to “rent” music, just as they “rent” access to TV programming via cable (why TiVo, which I do use, STILL hasn’t turned a profit in 8 years of operation), or “rent” access to radio programming via XM and Sirius.
It seems incredibly obvious (to me anyhow) that the primary reason that iPods outsell all the also-rans is not that people prefer to buy their music over rent it, but because people simply prefer the iPod over the other players… I know about 30 people with iPods, and I have asked them all if they would prefer to pay by the song and keep it forever, or pay by the month and only be able to listen as long as they keep paying. about 1/3rd said they would prefer to pay by the month – most citing because it would save them money in the long run, and about 1/3rd said they have no preference, and about 1/3rd said they prefer to buy CDs and rip them. Of those who said they would prefer to pay by the month for an unlimited selection of music, I asked them all why they have an iPod instead of one of the others, and all but 2 of them said they either did not like the way the others that they had seen worked, or because the iPod is just more cool. The other two have iPods because they were gifts. I asked if they would have been equally happy with a Creative Zen, and they both said “probably.”
Keep in mind that all of these people are professionals being paid at least $40,000/year or more in Florida, where the cost of living is well below the national average.
Giving MY personal opinion… I have a 30GB iPod… it’s about half full of all the songs ripped from my collection of have hundreds of dollars worth of CDs, most of which were bought in the ’90s. In the past 2 years, I have spent maybe $100 total on CDs and about $50 on iTunes in the same amount of time. I don’t drive much, but when I do, I prefer to listen to my iPod over the radio, just because I HATE radio commercials almost as I hate radio announcers. On short trips to the store, I leave the iPod at home, and the radio off. Note also that most of the music I like, though available on the iTunes store, is virtually NEVER played on any of the 30 or so radio stations where I live. If I DID drive often, I would subscribe to Sirius or XM as both have commercial free stations devoted to music I like. On the other hand, if given the option, there is no question at all that if I could, I would instead pay that same monthly amount to pick those songs I positively like, and have the iPod filled up the rest of the way with songs that I might like because it is similar to the music that I explicitly selected. If any of those suggested songs I did not like, I would simply skip them… In fact, I would really like to have something TiVo-like to be able to simply give a thumbs-down to suggested songs I do not like. If down, it never gets played again and is replaced with another suggestion at the next syncing.
In 10 years I doubt my music tastes will be precisely the same, and even if they were, in the scenario I suggest, I would certainly have received at least $1300 worth of music in that time.
I already pay $75/month for satellite TV, and even with TiVo, I don’t save shows more than a couple weeks. I pay $45/month for broadband. I pay $35/month for Vonage. I pay $85/month for family plan cell-phone service. Would another $13/month made a real dent? No, not at all.
Hey Bonesy…where the hell is this Sowhatho place anyway…? ain’t no goddam place I evver heard of. Aincha never heard of the world football and world baseball series…we are the world ya numbskull! Hell where the hell d’ya think Indiana an Chinatown are anyway.
You ain’t from ’round here are ya boy!
You bring ya noo-fangled gizmo’s to ma town boy, I’ll set the dogs on yer!!
Jed…git the shotgun!!
That is called radio. It’s been around for a while. Want a special song? Listen to your favorite channel and request it. Want to listen to only your own songs? You will be unlikely to discover NEW material.
Any idea how much users will be charged for tracks when the iPhone Finally launches?! do you think you’ll be charged the same as you would be online? Do you think operators and phone networks are going to happilly sit by let people download over-the-air for free – no. they’ll charge data transfer fees and standard rates. End of the day, if the iPhone launches without ANY glitches, works perfectly as a phone and the downloads from iTunes work perfectly (all highly unlikely) then users are going to have to pay significant data charges for itune tracks.
Anyone posting here got any idea how the mobile music industry works? any thoughts on consumer trends, download purchase habits, adoption rates or current levels of provision? thought not. standard Mac evangelist knee-jerk reaction.
And lets be honest, Apple has no experience whatsoever in the mobile phone market. no competition from Motorola, Nokia, SonyEriccson, Samsung, LG… oh.
It always cracks me up whenever mac fans get a chip on their shoulders about some new service rivalling iTunes of the iPod or anything Apple. “Oh god, no it’s rubbish, it’ll never work because it’s not mac. who do they think they are?! *cue hair-pilling, long faces and gnashing of teeth*.
hahahahahahah
Hey Joe90
1 million songs 3/4 maybe you do want to hear, maybe not = choice, yours to do with as you wish. So if someone chooses different, and does no one else harm…why diss it cos’ it ain’t yo mojo?
… reference-driven HiFi – no contest, but cd’s…? vinyl still surely, for the purists?!
…white ear-buds and wires… 21st century tribal accessories…well if you must…of course no one else makes ’em in white do they…
…anything apple does?….boy, have you been sheep-dipped…independent thought?…bet your thinking..Why oh why didn’t I take the BLUE pill
…over complicated gadgets?…the comms world…smart funksters on the move who can rapidly assimilate complexity into their lifesyles and thrive on it…simpleton.
just my thoughts on choice over domination in/of the free world.
Of course, people understand that the time needed to establish a wireless link to download tunes to iPhone is a service that costs money. However, whether a person has a subscription music service or a pay-for-only-music-you-want service, the user is still obligated to pay for the wireless service. Simple, huh?
Most businesses may offer 1,250 or 1,500 minutes per month for a flat fee, meaning you can choose to download as many songs as you like up to a maximal set of pre-determined minutes without having to pay incrementally for the time needed to download a tune. However, if each incremental time to download actually costs 10 cents per minute do you think that this “added expense” will be a financial hardship to many people? In addition, perhaps the cost of iPhone web browsing is part of a monthly fee that includes access provided to your home computer so there is no added cost at all. Also, some service providers only charge $5.00 per month for monthly VoIP. That’s not a whole lotta cash either for internet access, eh?
No one outside Apple’s inner circles knows what the exact costs of services will be. I know nothing about the pricing plans, but you obviously know even less than I do. That makes your statements absolutely idiotic and completely moronic. Are you still laughing, cornsax?
Magnificent piece! Now, explain how empirical evidence (i.e. Napster) contradicts your perfect theory. Hmm?
Music doesn’t worth a penny nowadays. People just trash their CDs after a few years. Let me ask all of you, how often you listen to your 4-6 years old tracks. Owning it just satisfy your wish, not a practical way. I would go for a reasonable subscription fee when I can listen to the latest tracks without even worrying how much i need to pay. If this doesn’t work in US or Europe, then go for Asia, people there like “all you can eat” model and even bigger market. Be Global! How many of you know about “Melon” and how many of you know about the money made by RingBack Tone “subscription”? Be real guys!