Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Music A La Carte: How the iPod and iTunes Turned the Music Industry Upside Down

by Mike Hickok
e-marketingclass blog


Ten years ago, I bought a new CD player that held 400 discs. I wanted centralized access to my entire music collection. A few clicks on a remote control, and I could go from listening to Pearl Jam to listening to Public Enemy without getting off the couch. Satisfied with my purchase, I happily enjoyed the intended values of the new device for several years: organization, convenience, and storage space reduction (no more huge CD racks filled with dusty jewel cases).

My new music solution worked well when I was in my living room. But if I was in my car, at work, or in the backyard mowing the lawn, I couldn’t benefit from the values the CD player provided. I needed more than organization, convenience, and storage space reduction; I needed portability.
Enter the iPod, an 800 disc CD changer that fits in your pocket. I bought one, and within a few hours, all of my music was available to me anywhere. The iPod uses a program called iTunes to categorize, organize, and synch my music library with my portable music device. Organization: check! Convenience: check! Space reduction: check! Portability: check! I thought that I had acquired the ultimate solution to my music problems. Little did I know that the real value of my new iPod device and iTunes software had nothing to do with portability or space reduction. It had everything to do with a feature called “shuffle,” the iTunes store, and the new way that the internet has allowed me to find, preview, buy, and listen to new music.

How did the 2001 introduction of the iPod and iTunes increase access to music for millions of people while disrupting the music industry and killing album sales? Visit Mike Hickok: E-Marketing to read the rest of my e-marketingclass blog and my analysis of Edna Gundersen's 2009 article in USA Today, "Moving in All Directions: Sales Slides, Pirates Aplenty, Microtrends in Pop – All Altered by the Internet"

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