TechNewsWorld Looks At Why iTMS Flies High While Others Falter

by , 4:30 PM EST, December 15th, 2003

Apple's iTunes Music Store may not have been the first online music store, and it certainly hasn't been the last, but it's been the only one to do it right, according to an article at TechNewsWorld. Evidence of the iTMS' success is in the numbers: 20 million songs sold since April of this year.

The first big service to try to take on the iTMS after its release was BuyMusic.com, which hasn't done nearly as well. According to the article, when the service was launched, BuyMusic expected to sell a million songs per day. Scott Blum, CEO of BuyMusic, admits that "We're not achieving that at all."

The article goes on to look at some of the reasons for the iTMS' success, including the ease-of-use of the iTunes application, the iPod, and more. From TechNewsWorld:

The first to take on Apple was BuyMusic.com in July. It expected 1 million daily song downloads. "We're not achieving that at all," says BuyMusic CEO Scott Blum. "I've spoken with my competitors, and we're nowhere near (Apple's) numbers."

Apple Holds Lead

In an industry in which just 3% of computer users have Apple computers, the company holds such a commanding lead, tech analysts say, because:

It was first. To compete with free, pirate song-swap services like Kazaa , Apple CEO Steve Jobs was the first to successfully woo the five major record labels to loosen up and offer music downloads that could be copied easily to CDs and portable devices.

"Jobs broke the logjam," says analyst Phil Leigh of research firm Inside Digital Media. "In one broad stroke, he legitimized digital music in the vocabulary of the general public."

Apple's iTunes Music Store launched in April for just Macintosh customers. A million downloads sold in the first week. Apple joined the Windows world in October. "They're still enjoying first-mover advantage," says Brad Hill, author of The Digital Songstream (Routledge, $19.95), a digital music guide. "Generally, with tech services, the first one out reaps the biggest benefits."

You can read the full article at TechNewsWorld's Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Apple was the first to make an easy-to-use online music store with a consistent rights system that was acceptable to users. On the other hand, BuyMusic was the first to poorly mimic the iTMS. With spotty rights, poor customer service, and a web site that blocked all traffic not coming from Internet Explorer on Windows, it's no surprise that it isn't doing nearly as well.

At least Scott Blum can fess up that his company didn't meet its ridiculous "million songs per day" goal.

TechNewsWorld