Dr. Evil Targets iTunes

Apple Inc., watch your back -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
iTunes is the now-legendary online music store created by Apple Inc. It actually started out as a download interface for the iPod mp3 player in 2001; then it added its music store in April 2003. From that point, iTunes became a major cultural force, helping to drive such brick-and-mortar record stores as Tower Records into irrelevance. No longer would the public pay $13.99 for a crummy 12-song CD with only 2 good songs. The public would now cherry-pick the songs they like and buy them for 99 cents each. Playlist has since replaced Album as the relevant unit of song collections. If you browse the site now, you see there is extreme breadth and depth to iTune's music selection. iTunes still pretty well sets the standard for hip and slick online music marketing.

Apple has since added video games, podcasts, TV shows and movies to the mix. If you look at the iTunes TV offerings, the list of networks is impressive and you'll probably find some of your favorite shows. However, if you click on a particular network, you might be disappointed by the relatively small number of offerings. If we go from TV to movies, the prognosis is even less encouraging for iTunes. When you click on iTunes movies, all you get are Disney and Paramount selections. Worse yet, you only get a subset of those movies, and what looks like the "B" movies from Paramount. If you hope to find the latest movies you'd see at Best Buy, Blockbuster or Target you're out of luck -- unless it's a Disney title. What this creates is a void, and in this day of high-bandwidth opportunism, void is in all senses a four-letter word.



It's WWI all over again -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

Talk of business voids leads me to think of Steve Jobs' chief nemesis - Bill Gates. I know that Bill Gates is frequently portrayed by geeks as the anti-Christ or All-that-is-evil. Well, Dr. Evil has just released Windows Media Center (WMC) as the centerpiece of his new Windows Vista operating system. And it is good. The PC's with Vista Home Premium are now shipping with TV-like remote controls. The controls step you thru the wondrous interface and selections of WMC. WMC gives us MovieLink and Vongo who give us affordable, high-def downloads of virtually any movie that is out. In addition, various networks (MtV, NickTV, Comedy Central) offer direct links to their own WMC sites which offer way more than iTunes, sometimes with free content.

Dr. Bill ‘Evil' Gates has done it again. I can see him stroking his Siamese cat. Just as with Microsoft Excel or Internet Explorer, he cruised along and aimed torpedoes at someone else’s business model. Now, this war is still in progress. If this were WWI, you could say the Arch Duke of Serbia has just been shot. In my WWI analogy, I’m not really sure who is the good guy or the bad guy. All I know is that if I want to download The Departed that just came out on 2/13, I better go to WMC not iTunes. Also, note to Blockbuster and Netflix: remember what happened to Tower Records and the Lusitania? You could be the next collateral damage in this war between Apple and Microsoft. May the person who consistently offers the best interface and best deals (and not necessarily the nicest or best man) win.

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