iTunes
Complete My Album is selling music
I was just as much a naysayer as Dave was when the service first came out (and for the record, I haven’t used it all either), but apparently there are lots of people who do use Apple’s “Complete My Album” service in iTunes — the NYT says that it has become a prime selling tool, especially for bands and labels that pre-release singles from their album in a digital format. A whopping 52% of Lil Wayne’s latest album sales on iTunes were sold through the “Complete My Album” feature. That means half the people who bought the album on iTunes had previously purchased one of the singles, and clicked through that way to buy the rest of their music.
And though neither Dave or I use “Complete My Album,” that’s a good sign for consumers, and a nice wake up call for the record industry — the days of playing a song on the radio to up album sales are over. Digital releases are what sells music, and though “Complete My Album” currently only works on music previously purchased in the iTunes store, Apple could very easily extend that to all music in iTunes — if you like a song that you’ve downloaded as a free single from the artist’s website, it’s just as easy to find music of theirs to buy in iTunes the same way.
We’re done with a world where radio airplay determines what sells at the record store. These days, consumers are the ones who tell record makers what they want to buy — it’s already in their iTunes playlists.
[Source: Nytimes]
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iTunes remembers George Carlin
Of all the things said about George Carlin over the past few days, I like what Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show most: he’s getting awfully tired of people who we need leaving us. But as Stewart also said, the good thing about Carlin is that he left us “hours and hours of video.” iTunes has posted a page of George Carlin’s famous standup to honor a comedian that I and many, many other comedy fans looked up to for laughter and inspiration.
If you need a place to start, the “seven dirty words” monologue is probably the most famous, but Carlin often said that his favorite performance was the “Jammin’ in New York” show — he said it was the first time he’d done longer pieces, and talked about stuff that he really put his heart into (it’s actually the show that was used for the Moment of Zen on the Daily Show). Definitely a great listen.
Of course, it’s probably not quite right that iTunes’ system automatically listed “Concert Tickets” as an option on the page. But in the world that Carlin worked his whole life to show us, big companies doing stupid things is nothing new.
Thanks, Steve!
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TV shows added to Australia iTunes Store
The Australian iTunes Store has become the latest to offer television programming for purchase.
Shoppers will notice that pricing is standard across all shows at $2.99 AUS per episode. There are no season passes available as of this writing, and several American shows, like Lost, Pimp My Ride (we’re sorry), Hannah Montana (we’re really sorry) and Scrubs (we’re indifferent) are available along side Australian shows like Sleek Geek and We Can Be Heroes.
ABC Studios, Disney, MTV, Nine Network and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are represented in iTunes.
[Via MacNN]
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Amazon’s MP3 store nearing global launch?
While Amazon’s quest to take its DRM-free, MP3 store global is public knowledge, the where and the when of that maneuver are closely guarded secrets. The UK’s Telegraph is reporting that execs from Amazon’s MP3 store were in London last week to “thrash out details of the launch with British record company bosses.” Of course this says nothing about timing. On one side of the impending launch is DRM, that hot button of nastiness favored by the music industry and not offered by Amazon MP3. On the other, iTunes, and the music industry’s desire to usurp Apple’s digital dominance while inversely strengthening the bargaining power of its music execs’ over Cupertino. In other words, we may be looking at an imminent launch of a global Amazon MP3 store… and we may not, though we’re leaning towards the former. Read
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Jayhawks and Apple Team Up for iTunes Giveaway
The performing arts center of the University of Kansas, the Lied Center, today announced a partnership with Apple to distribute 50,000 special Lied Center iTunes cards to people in the Midwest US. Each of the special cards provides free downloads of 20 songs by artists who will be performing at the Lied Center during the 2008-09 season.
The exclusive card, available at the Lied Center Ticket Office, provides a way for the Lied Center to attract new patrons and give existing ones a way to capture a foretaste of the upcoming season. The free music downloads available with the card include artists such as Phillip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and the Turtle Island String Quartet.
You can view the special Lied Center playlist in iTunes by clicking here. Read
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