In what is shaping up as one of the most poorly-received launches in Internet history, another columnist takes a look at BuyMusic.com and finds it woefully lacking when compared to Apple’s iTunes Music Store.
“BuyMusic.com may want to rename itself BuyHeadaches.com until it works out the kinks in its new music downloading service. The first weeks of any new business’s operations are fraught with glitches and frustrations. Still, once BuyMusic.com resolves those problems, there are others dealing with licensing rights that may drive customers loony-tunes over the long haul,” Suzanne Choney reports for The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“Apple’s iTunes Music Store, launched in April, quickly became a model of what a good music downloading service should be: easy to use, good quality, with few restrictions on how digital music files could be used. BuyMusic.com, despite a TV ad campaign that mimics Apple’s ads, is no iTunes Music Store. But until Apple launches its Windows-based music downloading service later this year, BuyMusic.com is probably one of the better pay-as-you-go services available for Windows users right now,” Choney reports.
“I downloaded nine songs from BuyMusic.com, almost all of them songs I’d previously downloaded from Apple. Apple charges 99 cents a song; BuyMusic.com advertises its tunes as starting ‘from 79 cents.’ Only one of the nine was 79 cents; the rest were 99 cents, which is generally the price for most songs on the site. Some go for $1.14,” reports Choney.
Choney continues, “Two of the songs I downloaded, ‘For What It’s Worth’ and ‘Sit Down I Think I Love You,’ were by Buffalo Springfield. However, when I played those songs later, neither one was as billed. They were Buffalo Springfield songs, but not the two I had chosen. I was excited to find a third song, ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ by Counting Crows, that had not been on the Apple site last time I checked. In playing it back, the file crackled. It was the same with songs from Elvis and The Allman Brothers Band. I don’t know whether this was due to the less-than-stellar Windows Media Audio format, which has a different approach to encoding digital music than the more popular MP3 format or even Apple’s Advanced Audio Coding format.”
Choney concludes, “When BuyMusic.com says the music can only play on one computer, it means just that. I recorded the songs to a CD, then put the CD into another computer and tried to play them. Immediately, my Web browser launched and I was taken to BuyMusic.com’s site, where I got this message: ‘A license for the track you are attempting to play cannot be found on your machine. If you have not purchased this track, but would like to do so now, please click here.’ No, I don’t think so. I think I’m done purchasing, for now anyway.”
MacDailyNews Take: You just have to feel for Windows-only users who are also music lovers. Here’s hoping Apple’s iTunes Music Store for Windows comes to them sooner than later or they buy a Mac, whichever comes first.
i dont know if i should feel sorry for scotty plum or just keep laughing at him
I actually do feel sorry for Windows users at the moment. Probably just as frustrated as myself being a UK Mac user with no access to iTMS. Lets all hope Apple can get iTMS out there for everyone as soon as possible cause there’s a lot of crap clogging up the airways.
Another potential UK iTMS customer here! Fingers crossed it won’t too much longer now.
all over the world there are these crazy shiny round discs. that’s how I get my music and it has better quality than any audio compressed format. I don’t know what’s to complain about — I’ve never been into one-hit wonder bands. everyone else can have their n’syncs and britney spears.
I have no idea what you’re talking about ‘media’?? What’s one-hit wonder bands got to do with iTMS and buymusic.com?
(one track mind here) – Has anyone – ANYONE – seen even a single sales report or just a casual mention of how sales are going? It’s no wonder they’re being tight-lipped about it… I’m sure there’s lots of hand-wringing and furrowed brows in the boardroom… let the finger pointing and denials and executions commence. I for one am sincerely hopeful that the rest of our Mac brothers and sisters abroad get to taste the bliss that is iTMS before any windoze folks do – even by just a few days would be fair enough.
MacDailyNews reported, “Apple has sold 6.5 million songs since April; BuyMusic won’t release figures, but ‘it’s not millions,’ [Buy.com’s CEO Scott] Blum says.”
Glitch hits BuyMusic.com; some songs unplayable on digital portables
“Apple’s Advanced Audio Coding format.”
AAC is NOT Apple’s format. Apple does use the format, but AAC is a format that can be used by anyone, not some proprietary Windows media type format. Everyone should go to great pains to make sure the average user understands this and understands the difference. Though the author probably did not intend to imply that AAC is Apple’s own format, statements like the one in the article can lead to great confusion.
Harryhoode is 100% correct. According to http://www.apple.com/itunes/ …
[start quote]
AAC (for Advanced Audio Coding, a big part of the MPEG-4 specification) is the cutting-edge audio codec that�s perfect for the Internet. AAC encoding compresses much more efficiently than older formats like MP3 (which iTunes still supports, by the way), while delivering quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio. In fact, expert listeners have judged AAC audio files compressed at 128 kbps (stereo) to be virtually indistinguishable from the original uncompressed audio source.
[end quote]
For these reasons alone, iTMS is the download store of choice, and Apple computers is the place to be if you are serious about your music or being on the leading edge of technology and innovation in any endeavor you are in.
What Wintel folks don’t realize is that Mac users DON’T use a browser to go shopping. They use there iTunes! I can’t imagine any browser/website making music browsing so easy. It’s identical to what I use in my own iTunes music library. I don’t have to constantly wait for a whole new webpage to be created and draw every time I want to see a new category, or try to learn how they have songs organized and how to jump to a different category.
This simplicity and elegance is far beyond anything Microsoft has ever produced. I have yet to see any Microsoft proposed future plans that equal (not to mention, exceed) what Apple already has on the market.
Thanks, Jack for the reference (I did see that when it was first posted) but my point is exactly that – Blum said it’s “not millions” – well, duh. He was SO gung-ho and arrogant at the startup and got lots of media to fawn over him and his “new” business and made wild predictions about the instant success and so on, but that was just the first day. How about now? I wanna know – what ARE the sales figures? How MANY songs/albums have they “sold”? I’m not interesting in knowing what the sales figures are NOT – which is pretty obvious at this point, since they’re being so tight-lipped about it. I think they’re embarrassed to admit how things are really going – and will likely make some lame excuse about what’s been NOT happening so far to mitigate the poor performance and high frustration and lack of uniform “licensing”, not to mention the privacy policy and on and on…
id like to shake scotty plums hand
a thousand dotcom deaths
http://texturadesign.com/index.htm
Check out buymusic.com on Alexa.com, which is a traffic ranking service.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=3m&size=large&compare;_sites=&url=buymusic.com#graph
BuyMusic.com had a lot of traffic at launch, probably due to curiosity, but since then, the site has been going down, down, down.
That alexa.com link is great. Under the Daily Traffic Rank Trend graph, I typed in emusic.com (existing subscription music service site that I have never actually visited). Except for the first week it was out, buymusic.com actually ranks lower than emusic.com.
Trust me, you’ll want to laugh at Scotty. I have used the iTunes Music Store since day one it’s simplicity is what makes it so easy. Eventually I know that the music industry will figure out their licensing agreements so the rest of the world can join in on the fun as well as our Windows brothers in December of this year.
I purchased 1 NIN song from buymusic.com as a quality test. It was total crap. 1 pass, 128kbit. I quickly wrote them letting them know that I would never be back, and asked them to kindly delete my account.
(advance apology for my snooty attitude concering my intolerance of ignorance and people who choose inferior things)
The whole buymusic.com situation is indeed sad (a sad excuse for a music service), but I do not feel for Wintel users.
Using the Wintel platform is a choice. They could’ve chosen the apparently not-so-obvious superior choice for their platform usage (Mac), but they did not. Ignorance of an available platform can’t be an excuse either, as ignorance in most cultures is not tolerated.
Now I _do_ feel for non-United States Mac users. I’m not able to comprehend why Apple hasn’t released the iTMS to UK folk by now. Those are the people I feel sorry for. They are dedicated to the superior platform (again, by choice) but are being denied usage of a superior music service not by choice. Most people who live in a country do so because they were born there, not because they moved (choice).
And claiming that the computer you use is the Wintel computer your employer purchased is not excuse. You could still _choose_ to purchase the superior Mac platform for your home and personal usage.
Semaphore
The incentive to all these services is that you don’t have to buy the junk tracks and only pay for individual tracks (most applicable to one-hit wonder bands.) If you end up buying a full album, price-wise, it’s cheaper to go out and buy the CD: and you get the bonus of liner notes, CD media and higher audio quality.
Actually, downloading whole CDs is cheaper than any store I’ve been in, unless you buy used (which is a great option but also a mixed bag).
Mac users are such babies. They jealously guard their insular little community more than D&D players. What dorks!
Flappy is that the best you can come up with is that Mac users are dorks and babies? By the way why are you on a Mac forum calling Mac users dorks and babies? It sounds like there are some deep seeded pshycological problems with Mac users comimg from you(Flappy). I prescribe 2 chill pills and that you return to your PC world and all of it’s viruses as soon as possible.
Have a good day