Members Ryst Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6788045.ece The world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scud133 Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 interesting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Synonym Music Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 Despite the success of singles downloads, the industry has found it harder to persuade consumers to buy digital albums. The 2009 Entertainment Retailers Association handbook shows that only 10.3 million of the 139.8 million albums sold last year were downloads. Picking and choosing songs is a key feature of online retailers like iTunes. What do they expect people to do? Keep buying albums with {censored}ty songs inbetween? Those days are long over. I bet if you added up those digital singles and divided them by an average album length (10 songs? 12 songs?), the number would be huge. There's heaps of online sales going on. Even iTunes (was it them?) tried to lock this out with Album Only tracks. I'm pretty sure none of their consumers liked that idea. Anyway.. It'll be interesting to see how this format pans out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 how revolutionary i guess i must give the ceo' boni Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Duddits Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 All those extras that come with an album that industry execs wax nostalgic over, artwork, notes, etc. are chaff. For all the insidery excitement of bundling artwork and notes with music, from a consumer's perspective, they might as well be bundling hamsters and paperclips. People download music to listen to the *ahem* music, not moon over a trippy cartoon rendition of the band floating in space on their computer screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 The real question, of course, is will this format play in existing players and phones? If not, it's dead, right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sventvkg Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 It's going to come down to pricing. They say they they will have a bunch of different formats available in the download etc so something should be there that's compatible with whatever playing you choose to use. If these downloads are going to be 15.99 or more which suspect they will, it's not going to fly. If they are priced reasonably, i feel it could do well. Will it supplant the iTunes store? I don't know but I suspect it will not but could become viable on it's own. Will Apple's version of this idea pan out? Time will tell but this is precisely what needed to happen but It just may be too late for the labels. Had they done this even 5 years ago they might have been able to save themselves but now, i don't think even this will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Interesting. Personally, I think there are advantages to standardized formats, and think this is a good idea overall - of course, I also see the potential for another "format war" here, depending on what the Big Four do, and what Apple decides to do, and how compatible they are with existing players, etc. I agree that to a certain extent, some of the stuff being discussed is "chaff". The music is what I purchase an album for, first and foremost. But I don't think the "chaff" is totally unimportant either. Part of the "album experience" of my youth was not only listening to the record, but reading the liner notes, looking at the pictures, etc. With digital, we can go beyond the old space limitations of 8 panel CD booklets and LP covers and liners, and include even more stuff that people may find interesting - videos, interviews with the band, more pictures, details about the recording and production process, lyrics and "liner notes" that even an old guy like me can actually see and read. As far as the "return of the era of the single" goes, I think that's true. Consumers tend to want to pick and choose which songs they like and want to purchase. However, some of us still like the "album experience", and the concept as "album as a work of art" also has appeal to me, even in this era. But beyond the rabid fans of a particular artist, if you want that to fly, then the content better kick butt and take names. No fluff, no filler. Knock us out, or we'll continue to purchase piecemeal, as opposed to in bulk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phait Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 A spokesman for the association said: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 So if this were a real specification I should be able to google the format specs and prep art and text for delivery Monday. no. nope. nothing. This is misguided. This is the equivalent of the ever smaller 4s agreeing that they will standardize on a particular gatefold sleeve spec. Again they are missing the market. If Apple is married to the single song format for their own business interests, then the labels have to reinvent the album category and overwhelm the Apple store. They do that by opening the spec so that everybody can release today in that format. if it were an open spec - developers would engineer it into Apple players whether Apple said they wanted it - or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 And they never will. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 All those extras that come with an album that industry execs wax nostalgic over, artwork, notes, etc. are chaff. For all the insidery excitement of bundling artwork and notes with music, from a consumer's perspective, they might as well be bundling hamsters and paperclips. People download music to listen to the *ahem* music, not moon over a trippy cartoon rendition of the band floating in space on their computer screen. While it's clear they shouldn't elevate the extras over the basic musical content, the extras should I believe be worked for all they're worth by the companies. The basic music can be gotten for cheap or free otherwise. Personally, I would really dig a digital album download of say, one of my fav jazz artists, if it came with pics and extensive notes and maybe a video or two. Stuff I want to drill down into, not just quick candy for making the commute. I also really like the labor-of-love box collections of CDs. They are of course, years behind the curve as usual, but at least they're moving in what I think is a reasonable and money-rational direction with this. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hard Truth Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 Two competing formats=fail. Apple has an annoying policy of avoiding fomats that are compatible with other companies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 Wouldn't it be easier to just bring back records full scale? I just don't get why they don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phait Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 Who wants to buy record players in 2009? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted August 8, 2009 Members Share Posted August 8, 2009 coly how this thread developes to a human resource place for the record industry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted August 9, 2009 Members Share Posted August 9, 2009 Who wants to buy record players in 2009? that's an interesting question - in 2001 there were second hand turntables for $10 stacked in the corner of every second hand shop - today they sit out front at $200 a piece. If the record companies offer a service equivalent to I-Tunes in mp3 and wav format I would drop I-Tunes immediately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Duddits Posted August 9, 2009 Members Share Posted August 9, 2009 that's an interesting question - in 2001 there were second hand turntables for $10 stacked in the corner of every second hand shop - today they sit out front at $200 a piece. I've notice the price of Edison Wax Cylinder players has also increased since the years following their discontinuation. A trend perhaps? Hmmmm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Synonym Music Posted August 9, 2009 Members Share Posted August 9, 2009 It's going to come down to pricing. They say they they will have a bunch of different formats available in the download etc so something should be there that's compatible with whatever playing you choose to use. If these downloads are going to be 15.99 or more which suspect they will, it's not going to fly. If they are priced reasonably, i feel it could do well. Will it supplant the iTunes store? I don't know but I suspect it will not but could become viable on it's own. Will Apple's version of this idea pan out? Time will tell but this is precisely what needed to happen but It just may be too late for the labels. Had they done this even 5 years ago they might have been able to save themselves but now, i don't think even this will. Here's another reason pricing is important: How much does manufacturing cost them? ...Exactly. There still things like server space, bandwidth, maybe some R&D etc, but I don't think it compares to the cost of physical CDs. They're going to need most releases at a $12.99 cap. I feel subscription services are still a better answer in many ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Will Chen Posted August 10, 2009 Members Share Posted August 10, 2009 Artists should put all that stuff up on their web page. I'm a rhapsody subscriber and I won't be buying another CD (or even pay for an album download) for a long, long time if ever... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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