Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Can Apple score ten billion dollars for a song?
Somewhere along the line, Collective Soul fell off my radar entirely. Back in the mid-nineties, a self-titled album that I adored was followed up by an album from the band that didn't do much for me. So when they released subsequent records, I couldn't bring myself to purchase them. Eventually I lost track of whether the band was even still together. That was, of course, until I saw Collective Soul perform at Music MidTown in Atlanta this past weekend. The greatest-hits performance reminded me of just how many great songs the band had recorded since I stopped buying its albums. When I got home, I knew exactly what I had to do: go shopping at the iTunes Music Store.
Thanks to the thirty-second previews, I was able to quickly identify the songs I was looking for, and around a half-dozen of them became iPod fodder within seconds. There's no way I would have gone out and bought those CD's at full price, so this was six dollars that neither the artist nor the record company would ever have seen if it weren't for Apple's innovative new way of separating us from our money on our terms. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that these six tracks bring my total number of purchases to a paltry eight songs so far, but this has been due simply to a lack of time on my part. There's so much music I want to sit down and buy, I don't even know where to begin. I just can't seem to stay in town lately.
It's a good thing that other Mac-heads haven't been as pressed for time. With precious little help from me, the Mac community has managed to nab over a million songs at a buck a piece in the first week. Invoking some legendary bad math, we can take a few wild guesses at what the first week's sales might translate into when iTunes for Windows finally rears its (probably quite literally) ugly head. Let's start with the fact that there were one million downloads of iTunes 4, which translates to a current potential user base of one million customers. We'll assume all of the following ludicrous propositions: one song per week per potential user will remain a constant throughout, and there are 200 million total Internet-enabled consumer computers in the United States. We'll even assume 50 weeks in a year just to make sure everyone understands that this is phony math, and thus we're looking at ten billion dollars in annual revenue from the Music Store domestically. While this number was arrived at by making some rather ridiculous assumptions, it does represent more annual revenue than Apple currently brings in from all of its other divisions combined. For that reason alone, it's worth pondering the ten billion for a moment before dismissing it for the picked-out-of-a-hat figure that it is. I'm not suggesting that it will actually happen, but it's fascinating to imagine what all it would mean for Apple if it did.
In case anyone is wondering, Collective Soul put on a fantastic show Saturday night and proudly pronounced that they're "back". The unfinished tracks they played from their upcoming album sounded promising, and led me to wonder: when the album comes out, will I buy it in the store or just download the whole thing? For now, I'm just glad I'll have that choice.
For regular readers, I'm afraid I must head out tomorrow morning on another little out-of-town excursion that will keep me away from my keyboard for a few days, but this time it's for a good cause: I have the privilege of chaperoning an overnight school field trip. There's a technology component involved with the trip that will certainly take our technology program to new places, and I can't wait to share the results here once I return. But for now, I'm off to make sure the batteries are charged on what suddenly seems like one-too-many digital devices to carry over one shoulder. I don't know if it will all work out as expected, but the kids say they're ready to try anything, and it just might all fall into place. Fifth graders living the iLife -- the great experiment begins. See you in three days.
Somewhere along the line, Collective Soul fell off my radar entirely. Back in the mid-nineties, a self-titled album that I adored was followed up by an album from the band that didn't do much for me. So when they released subsequent records, I couldn't bring myself to purchase them. Eventually I lost track of whether the band was even still together. That was, of course, until I saw Collective Soul perform at Music MidTown in Atlanta this past weekend. The greatest-hits performance reminded me of just how many great songs the band had recorded since I stopped buying its albums. When I got home, I knew exactly what I had to do: go shopping at the iTunes Music Store.
Thanks to the thirty-second previews, I was able to quickly identify the songs I was looking for, and around a half-dozen of them became iPod fodder within seconds. There's no way I would have gone out and bought those CD's at full price, so this was six dollars that neither the artist nor the record company would ever have seen if it weren't for Apple's innovative new way of separating us from our money on our terms. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that these six tracks bring my total number of purchases to a paltry eight songs so far, but this has been due simply to a lack of time on my part. There's so much music I want to sit down and buy, I don't even know where to begin. I just can't seem to stay in town lately.
It's a good thing that other Mac-heads haven't been as pressed for time. With precious little help from me, the Mac community has managed to nab over a million songs at a buck a piece in the first week. Invoking some legendary bad math, we can take a few wild guesses at what the first week's sales might translate into when iTunes for Windows finally rears its (probably quite literally) ugly head. Let's start with the fact that there were one million downloads of iTunes 4, which translates to a current potential user base of one million customers. We'll assume all of the following ludicrous propositions: one song per week per potential user will remain a constant throughout, and there are 200 million total Internet-enabled consumer computers in the United States. We'll even assume 50 weeks in a year just to make sure everyone understands that this is phony math, and thus we're looking at ten billion dollars in annual revenue from the Music Store domestically. While this number was arrived at by making some rather ridiculous assumptions, it does represent more annual revenue than Apple currently brings in from all of its other divisions combined. For that reason alone, it's worth pondering the ten billion for a moment before dismissing it for the picked-out-of-a-hat figure that it is. I'm not suggesting that it will actually happen, but it's fascinating to imagine what all it would mean for Apple if it did.
In case anyone is wondering, Collective Soul put on a fantastic show Saturday night and proudly pronounced that they're "back". The unfinished tracks they played from their upcoming album sounded promising, and led me to wonder: when the album comes out, will I buy it in the store or just download the whole thing? For now, I'm just glad I'll have that choice.
For regular readers, I'm afraid I must head out tomorrow morning on another little out-of-town excursion that will keep me away from my keyboard for a few days, but this time it's for a good cause: I have the privilege of chaperoning an overnight school field trip. There's a technology component involved with the trip that will certainly take our technology program to new places, and I can't wait to share the results here once I return. But for now, I'm off to make sure the batteries are charged on what suddenly seems like one-too-many digital devices to carry over one shoulder. I don't know if it will all work out as expected, but the kids say they're ready to try anything, and it just might all fall into place. Fifth graders living the iLife -- the great experiment begins. See you in three days.
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