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Playing Catchup With iTunes

Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 12:30 PM - by

On Monday, Ethan Smith at the Wall Street Journal analyzed the competition to Apple's iTunes in an in-depth article: Can Anybody Catch iTunes? [Subscription required.] Mr. Smith's survey of Emusic, Yahoo Music, Napster, RealNetworks, and Microsoft revealed how each company is avoiding a head-on confrontation with market leader Apple, taking an indirect approach, and trying to find small holes in the successful iTunes strategy.

Mr. Smith explained how Emusic is doing well because theirs is the only service compatible with the Apple iPod. Yahoo is going after customers who have been reluctant to engage in pay-for-music services in the past. Napster is concentrating on the "music wants to be free" slogan, leveraging their heritage, and also working ambitiously to convert their base into paying customers. RealNetworks is working on improving the hardware integration with partner SanDisk. Microsoft is focusing on one of the social aspects of music.

This is an excellent survey of the competition. While Mr. Smith didn't make any predictions or come to any conclusions, he showed how each competitor is trying to avoid a head-on approach and, instead, carve out a market niche for themselves.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:04 pm

How ironic is it that a story about music, the struggle with subscription services, versus pay per download, versus "free" music is on a site that requires a subscription?

If you "get what you pay for", it must truly be good. I however, am not going to pay for it. Glad somebody did.

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Biff said:

member since 08 Apr 2004 with 1479 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:50 pm

Dude its the Wall Street Journal, not the Metro. You get what you pay for.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:12 pm

"He showed how each competitor is trying to avoid a head-on approach and instead, carve out a market niche for themselves."

So in other words they aren't even trying to catch iTunes because they know they don't have a chance.

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