According to this Michael Rose story from The Unofficial Apple Weblog, iTunes now our fourth largest music retailer. Rose writes that
the iTunes Music Store has sold over two billion songs, and is now the fourth largest music retailer in the US, ahead of Amazon.com and sneaking up on #3 Target.
I can see it. My son and I have downloaded classical, jazz, ragtime, and rock music from iTunes, single tunes as well as entire albums; I've sent and received entire albums as gifts; and I've sent playlists as gifts.
So who's the largest music retailer in the United States? Well, it ain't Tower Records.
(According to this story, iTunes sells over 5 million songs a day, or 58 tunes per second.)
And according to Eliot Van Buskirk at Wired News, iTunes is on the way outta here. There seems to be some confusion, though, between headline: "Who's Killing MP3 and ITunes?" and story, which purports to offer "seven reasons why MP3 is the future of the music industry." So I guess the MP3 format is either dying or the future of the music industry. Interesting read nonetheless. There's definitely something to Van Buskirk's point that consumers are tiring of being regarded by the recording industry as little more than potential pirates. Listen up, record companies: I've bought music in three vinyl formats (single, long-player, and EP), on cassette tapes, on compact discs, and via downloads. I've never stolen your product. Get over it.
And yes, they're "albums."
Posted by Craig Ceely at January 14, 2007 01:31 PM