May 29 2003
NY Times Hails iTunes Music Store
The New York Times gives the new iTunes store a rave review, saying that it was what the music industry needed.
The article does come with some negatives.
“The iTunes Music Store is not without flaws. Its song collection is not only relatively small, but also limited to music from major labels; independent labels are shut out. Another flaw is that it does not allow consumers to get more involved, as they did with Napster, by promoting their favorite songs through instant messaging and other features of the open architecture of the Internet. In fact, iTunes, doesn’t even have an affiliate program, similar to Amazon’s, so that other Web sites can refer customers to the iTunes Music Store and earn a small portion of money from the sales. And of course the iTunes store is available only through a Macintosh.”
Most of that is likely to change in the future, though, since iTunes Music store is still in its infancy. Its future looks bright as long as there are people like Numair Faraz:
“Apple is the new MTV,” said Numair Faraz, 18, who has started several online service companies. “It is the new funnel for music. When things moved from radio to video, MTV was the sole source of music. Now Apple is going to control the distribution and the promotion of music. The entire ecosystem they are using is theirs.” Mr. Faraz said he bought roughly $115 worth of music at the iTunes store last month. In comparison, he said, he spent no money on CD’s in the last year.
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