Apple. Please stop with the nonsense. I know you are a big shiny tech company and I know that everyone expects big things from you all of the time. But it's starting to be a bit much. When you position every new thing as the next best thing, users start to question if you actually have anything to say at all. Take yesterday's BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. You took your website offline, you teased us with sneaky taglines and ticking clocks. And you whipped the media and tech blogosphere into a frenzy. It's a testament to your PR people and to some of your previous innovations.
With great hype comes great responsibility. What did you get us all worked up for yesterday? To tell us you've finally added the Beatles to your catalogue? Really? Judging by the hype you put behind your coup, you'd think you had produced and released the White Album yourself. Instead, as Tech Dirt points out, you did this: Beatles & Apple Finally Going To Let You Pay Money For The Beatles Songs You've Been Pirating For Years
Sure, you'll undoubtedly make money off this deal. Especially from bored consumers looking for gift ideas for the holidays. And, true, the Beatles are one of the most important rock bands ever, so we shouldn't underestimate what this means for their fans, old and new. But the recycling of old content into a new medium is hardly something worthy of such lavish pronouncements. My record store down the street doesn't hold the presses every time it makes a new acquisition to its catalogue. It doesn't beg me to pay attention again and again for every new business deal it makes. Because this is what records stores are supposed to do. Sell music.
Mark Mulligan, a researcher at Forrester, is right Why The Beatles On iTunes Really Isn't A Big Deal. Although he's getting trashed in the comments, he underscores what's so frustrating about today's announcement. There are dozens of innovations digital music users would be interested in: streaming service, cloud storage, a Ping that actually works well with other social networks, smarter media management, wireless transfer, less bloat, home sharing that actually works, and on and on. Making the Beatles' discography available is not news. It's something that should have happened long ago, something that should have been a very condition of being a music retailer.
The iTunes store has the Beatles. You're the number one music retailer in North America, it's the least I would expect from you. This is why peer to peer services still represent a more appealing option to millions of users. Digital retailers have incomplete catalogues. They aren't a one-stop shop, no matter how many artists they claim to have on their digital shelves. Moreover, each service has a different catalogue, with various omissions, absences and holes.
Sure. You can give me reason after reason why this move still matters. But the fact is its boring news dressed up an innovation. The strength and problem of brands as well respected as Apple is that they begin to confer meaning onto products or experiences that may or may not be there. Apple thrives on hype, exciting product launches, and massive media events. When it starts deploying these same tactics for useless news, it becomes a mockery of itself. The power of brands is most keenly felt when they disappoint. The expectations the company itself creates facilitates this disappointment.
Apple has now filled the hole the Beatles made in their catalogue. Now it'll have to fill the hole it created by ratcheting up expectations.
0 comments:
Post a Comment