Entries tagged with “itunes” from Tools of Change for Publishing
"E pluribus tunum: Uniform prices for online music are no way to maximise profit"
Andrew Savikas
November 2, 2009
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"Charging an "entry fee" for use of the service and then a small, fixed per-song cost for downloads turned out to benefit both the seller and the buyer. The most revenue, according to the 2009 survey data, would be generated by charging the students $21.19 for entry and 37 cents a song. This could raise the producer surplus by 30% compared with uniform pricing. Consumer surplus would also rise in this instance, because some people would buy songs they would have not have done at a higher uniform price. Spotify, a rival to iTunes, has a model somewhat like this for its premium service, where it charges a monthly fee for songs without limit."
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/economicsfocus/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14699573
iPhone App Outperforms Most Print (Computer) Books This Holiday Season
Andrew Savikas
January 7, 2009
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Conventional wisdom suggests that when choosing pilot projects, you pick ones with a high likelihood of success. It's hard to argue that iPhone: The Missing Manual was a reasonable choice for testing the iPhone App waters. But while we knew it would do well, we've been quite pleased with just how well:
- If the iPhone App by itself had been a book, it would be a top 10 seller in BookScan for Computer Books this holiday season, based on just 17 days of sales
- The print version appears to have been unaffected, retaining a solid position in the top 3 for Computer Books in BookScan
- A full 1/3 of those buying the app are outside the US, mostly in countries where the print book is not readily available
There are certainly some who don't care for the book-as-app approach, preferring the library model (where one app enables reading multiple titles). It's also clear there's substantial customer interest in both options, and we strongly believe that offering a variety of options and letting customers choose is the right approach. This is a time for experimentation, and we'll be doing quite a bit more of it (format, pricing, content) in the digital -- and especially mobile -- space in the coming months.
History Repeating with Book Publishing's Mobile Efforts
Peter Brantley
December 10, 2008
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A Computerworld blog post from Mike Elgan looks at recent mobile announcements from book publishers. From the perspective of technology, watching book publishers slowly grapple with the tentative migration of books to mobile platforms is painful. Interestingly, the comments attached to the piece are almost all more conservative.
The music industry was holding on to physical CD sales so tightly that they let Apple run away with control over digital distribution and the future of their industry.
It looks like the book publishing industry is about to do the same thing.
Publishing industry: The book isn't the paper. It's the content! Why don't you understand your own product?
Open Question: Digital Ownership vs. Digital Subscriptions
Mac Slocum
October 1, 2008
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Two tips in Dear Author's recent post "10 Things Epublishers Should Do for Readers" caught my attention:
1. Eternal Bookshelf. An eternal bookshelf means that every purchase you have bought can be downloaded at any time. Most of the larger etailers have this feature but not all.
2. Mass Downloads. Along with the eternal bookshelf should be the ability to re-download all of your books. This is necessary in the case of a computer crash or some other computer related malfunction.
The focus on ownership is interesting, particularly since the concept of "owning" a digital file is inherently quirky. You can purchase and download books, music, TV shows, movies and software, but the tangible qualities of ownership don't apply in the digital realm. You don't categorize your digital movie collection on a DVD shelf and you don't thumb through a just-purchased ebook.
There's a weird dichotomy at play here. Many people (myself included) have come to terms with the ambiguous aspects of digital purchases, but a significant portion (again, myself included) gravitate toward digital ownership over digital subscriptions (e.g. the iTunes model vs. the Rhapsody model). The only clear difference between these models is access: purchased files are accessed from your local storage, subscriptions are accessed from a company's servers. But if your chosen material is available through your chosen device at your chosen time, does ownership really matter?
I'm interested in hearing how members of the TOC Community view the differences between ownership and subscriptions. Here's a few questions toward that end:
- Do you purchase digital content and store it on your own devices?
- Do you expect retailers to allow you to download additional copies of your purchased content?
- Do you subscribe to digital content?
- What would it take for you to switch from ownership to subscription?
Please share your thoughts in the comments area.
Amazon and Google Challenging iTunes through Mobile
Mac Slocum
September 23, 2008
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T-Mobile's Android-based mobile phone will include a connection to Amazon's MP3 store. From Wired's Listening Post:
Owners of the device will be able to browse, search, preview and purchase music on the Amazon MP3 store using the phone's cellular connection. In order for purchased MP3s to download, the phone must be connected via Wi-Fi. (The mobile iTunes store, on the other hand, remains completely offline without WiFi.)
Rhapsody Courts Apple Crowd with DRM-Free MP3s
Mac Slocum
June 30, 2008
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Rhapsody, a digital music subscription service, is now offering MP3 downloads with no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.
Rhapsody's subscription service remains under digital rights protection, but Reuters says the company is looking to expand its reach into the Apple-dominated music sector by making its downloads compatible with iPods.
Amazon, Wal-Mart and Napster also offer DRM-free MP3 downloads, but to date no company has challenged Apple's iPod/iTunes model. An industry analyst offers Reuters one potential explanation for Apple's dominance, and it has nothing to do with DRM:
[Apple's] success has been due partly to a seamless interface between iTunes and the iPod and because it provides a good user experience, said analyst David Card of Jupiter Research.
Ease of Use as Anti-Piracy Tool
Mac Slocum
April 23, 2008
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Simon Juden, CEO of the Publishers Association, says uniform ebook standards -- and the resulting ease of use -- can deter piracy. From The Bookseller:
Licensing must be intuitive, simple and straightforward at the user level or the user will look for ways to circumvent them.
On a related note: Itunes, noted in the past for its ease of use, recently claimed the top spot among U.S. music retailers.
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