Soon your iPod will never break.<\/p>\n
Many of you weren’t around in the early days of computing, the eighties, when hard drives were introduced for personal computers, and failed on a regular basis.\u00c2\u00a0 You backed up everything on floppies, because that day was going to come.\u00c2\u00a0 When you heard that grinding noise and your data was lost forever.<\/p>\n
Hard drives still fail.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s a rare event.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t had one go bad on me since the eighties, and most people I know never back up.<\/p>\n
But those hard drives rarely budge.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re in desktops that are plunked down under a desk and never moved until their days are done.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, in laptops that are treated with care, since laptops are historically expensive and fragile overall.\u00c2\u00a0 But in iPods…\u00c2\u00a0 Take a look at a collection of Sony Walkmen.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re beat to hell.\u00c2\u00a0 You throw them in a bag, you run with them, you EXPECT them to work.\u00c2\u00a0 But inside the Walkman replacement, the iPod, there’s a tiny hard drive, and its days are INHERENTLY numbered.<\/p>\n
But soon most iPods won’t come with a hard drive inside.\u00c2\u00a0 Soon, most iPods will have no moving parts.\u00c2\u00a0 As flash memory takes over.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nApple to debut 12GB iPod nano by Q4 06<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
If you want to know what’s going on in digital music don’t read hitsdailydouble or the Velvet Rope, go to the macdailynews.com.\u00c2\u00a0 Right there, in one spot, is a compendium of every story relevant to the scene.<\/p>\n
That’s what the Web provides, filters.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d think the labels would know this, with the dominance of the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re still living in the brick and mortar world.\u00c2\u00a0 Where people DRIVE to retail establishments instead of clicking their way to an Internet site.<\/p>\n
There’s only one site that matters.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to remember this.<\/p>\n
There’s only one YouTube.\u00c2\u00a0 Only one MySpace.\u00c2\u00a0 Only one iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 With easy access to all, everyone gloms on to the best site where the MOST PEOPLE LIVE!\u00c2\u00a0 Does that mean the aforementioned sites will be dominant forever?\u00c2\u00a0 No.\u00c2\u00a0 Something better could come along and usurp their position, but better isn’t all that matters.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to be better and gain TRACTION, i.e. eyeballs.<\/p>\n
Rental is niche.\u00c2\u00a0 For many reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 But the definitive one is in today’s "Wall Street Journal", which although locked behind the wall of a paysite you can read the essence of on the Macdailynews.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nFree, legal and ignored: Mac- and iPod-incompatible beleaguered Napster dying at colleges<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Turns out they can’t even GIVE Napster\/Rhapsody, et al, away on college campuses.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, NOBODY WANTS IT!\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want services that are incompatible with iPods where when you graduate you end up with NOTHING!<\/p>\n
Now do you expect these college students to change course after graduation?\u00c2\u00a0 To then embrace rental?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think their high school brethren will be quick on the uptake?\u00c2\u00a0 No, rental, if not quite dead, is a marginal business.\u00c2\u00a0 And Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman should stop trumpeting it as a solution.<\/p>\n
Not that the iTunes Music Store is a solution either.\u00c2\u00a0 Because its net only captures a small percentage of acquisition.
\u00c2\u00a0
One in five Americans now have MP3 players.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n