Apple Inc.'s online iTunes music store is now the number-two music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as measured by unit volume, market researcher NPD Group said Tuesday. The market researcher began tracking music sold stateside during the middle of 2006. In the fourth quarter of that year, Best Buy Co. took second place behind Wal-Mart, while Target Corp. took third place and Apple's iTunes store fourth place, NPD analyst Russ Crupnick said. For the full year 2007, Best Buy came in third and Target fourth, he said.
Crupnick called Apple's move to the number-two spot "fairly understandable given the pressure that's been on CDs and the almost 50-percent growth in digital downloading in the past year." About 10 percent of music acquired in the U.S. was through legal downloads in 2007, and consumers who bought digital music legally through pay-to-download Web sites grew by 5 million to 29 million in 2007, NPD said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, an estimated 1 million consumers did not buy CDs in 2007, and 48 percent of U.S. teenagers didn't buy any CDs during the year, up from 38 percent in the year before, according to NPD data.
Top Indie Artists Embrace AimeStreet's Fan Driven Pricing
Starting today, thousands of tracks from indie label leaders Beggars, Matador, and Polyvinyl will be available on AimeStreet at prices determined by the site's fan driven service. All songs on Amie Street are initially free to download and then rise in price based on popularity up to 98 cents. Cat Power, Interpol, The New Pornographers, Sigur Rós, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Devendra Banhart, Belle and Sebastian and more join fan-driven pricing movement.
Avenue A Razorfish 2008 Digital Outlook Report
- Only a few years ago, a Web site’s home page was the most prime piece of digital real estate a publisher could offer. Not so much today, however. The relevance of the home page as a media buy is on the wane. Search, social networks, blogs, and RSS (among a host of other online sources) are driving more and more users deep into today’s Web properties. Now, the majority of consumers bypass a site’s home page completely.
- Every page is now a home page, each of which will have a wider reach, a lasting shelf life, and the ability to attract a new audience like never before. To capitalize on this, ensure that every page has a strong, clear global navigation scheme and related content that is visibly promoted. And don’t forget to make sure that display advertising gets prominent, above-the-fold, home-page-like treatment (300x250 rectangles and 728x90 leaderboards). Remember, every page can be accessed in any conceivable manner and in any conceivable order—you can’t design properties to control user flow anymore.
BandLoop Hopes To Streamline Band/Fan Communication
BandLoop is like a stripped-down version of MySpace that has eliminated everything except show announcements and blog posts, in order to offer a more streamlined conduit for show and other information to flow from bands to their fans. Add a show to your MyLoop list, and you'll be able to sign in any time to see the latest concert calendars and messages from your bands -- assuming the band has BandLoop on its radar, and is entering this information. The site also acts as a hinge between the band's various presences elsewhere on the net (Deerhunter's BandLoop page links to the band's website, MySpace page, YouTube videos, Hype Machine entries, Last.fm page, imeem page, and Wikipedia entry).
Research firms urge Hollywood to oust Apple
Two research firms -- Park Associates and Entertainment Technology Center at USC -- have released a document urging Hollywood to use Apple's own tactics of offering low-cost TV shows and feature films for mobile media devices in an effort to reap profits on their own, cutting the Cupertino-based company out of the equation. "Hollywood shouldn't let Apple make all the money, especially since they are the ones making the movies," said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates. "Judicious use of free mobile content can help drive ticket and DVD sales." The white paper specifically details steps to achieve profitable distribution of mobile content on mobile platforms and devices, without Apple's help.
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