“It was one of those sweltering summer nights when even a torrential rain can’t tamp down the temperature, but on this special ‘iPod night,’ things couldn’t have been cooler inside the Ferndale nightclub ‘the bosco,'” Susan Whitall reports for The Detroit News. “Sipping the inevitable chilled vodka, a few dozen folk on the green side of 40 were negotiating the summer’s cultural handshake, the 2005 equivalent of ‘What’s your favorite record?’ or ‘What’s your sign?’ This summer it’s, ‘What’s on your iPod?'”
“Apple’s popular music player, launched in October 2001, has changed not only the way we listen to music, but the way we think about it. Now, individual songs — the established currency of iPods and MP3 players — are coveted more than full-length albums. Bulky stereo systems are no longer necessary: Buy a docking station for your iPod/MP3 player, put it on a tiny shelf in your living room, and you’re set,” Whitall reports.
“It’s also led to a new form of communication: podcasting. Businesses and media outlets have figured out that creating the downloadable, radio show-like audio files is a way to communicate with people via their music players.” Whitall reports. “The iPod’s influence on radio has been most dramatic. Because studies show that younger listeners are more likely to tune out radio in favor of their iPods and MP3 players, radio programmers are scrambling to imitate the digital menace. And now the iPod craze has hit nightclubs.”
Full article here.
More evidence of critical mass, as if we needed any.
the dingo ate your baby
Do “docking stations” exist for any player other than the iPod? I haven’t seen any, but then I haven’t been looking very hard.
This has been happening for over 2 years… nothing new, please move along. iPod critical mass was so 2003.
I still enjoy hearing about critical mass. After Apple has one year like this for every year of the dark days of Spindler and Amelio, then I’ll get tired of it. We’ve still got a few years to go.
Because it still doesn’t sink in sometimes. I was in my local Apple Store (Cambridge, MA) on Saturday, to replace my 2nd gen 20GB iPod with a new 60GB, and the place was simply packed. (Mostly with teenagers.) I asked the sales guy “Is there some special event today?” and he just shrugged and said, “Nope.”
So every little story from every little newspaper that doesn’t have the word “beleaguered” in it is still music to my ears.