iPod versus ?

November 24, 2006 11:45am by

How complete is Apple’s domination of the MP3 market?

Have a look at Amazon’s top seller list (updated hourly). Apple has all 5 first slots, 9 of the top 10, 12 of the top 15.

Microsoft Zune?

# 16

Amzn_ipod

NOTE:  This updates every hour — this order is as of 3pm Wednesday. It may be interesting to see what moves up and down the list as the shopping season progresses.

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Hat Tip: Digital Audio Insider

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What's been said:

Discussions found on the web:
  1. Bob A commented on Nov 24

    For many if not most kids when you buy an Ipod you can clone your friend’s entire music library for free. And not they don’t care whether it’s legal or not any more than kids in the 60’s and 70’s cared if pot was illegal. Can’t do that yet with Zune.

  2. Barry Ritholtz commented on Nov 24

    One of my nephews (in their 20s) tells me he hasn’t bought music in 10 years.

    Makes me think its only boomers buying re-iussues and box sets —

    The recording industry, with lots of help from the retailers and radio chains, may very have lost an entire generation of Music BUYERS (but not users/lovers).

  3. j d ess commented on Nov 24

    watching tower records bankruptcy sale has been interesting. they’ve been discounting in 10% increments for about 4-6 weeks now. i’ve been keeping an eye on how low prices have to go before the place really gets picked over. last time i was there, everything was 40% off. but even at that discount, most of what i would still consider buying is too expensive. i’m amazed at how much is still left in the pop/hip-hop/dance racks. classical, country, folk and jazz have been pretty well picked over already.

    hey, barry, how about setting up a post-holiday roundtable with your chicago subscribers/readers? i’ll gladly suggest a few drinking establishments. woot!

  6. Gates commented on Nov 25

    I heard that story before:

    Apple
    Netscape
    Nitendo
    Sybase
    Oracle
    Sun
    IBM
    Novel
    Borland
    ….

    ha ha ha ha

    Apple will be a great stock to short this year as 3rd party MP3 players slowly kill the iPod brand and turn MP3 players into another low-priced electronic commodity.

    Then VISTA will blow another nut into Apple’s laptop business again, same old story…

  7. Michael C. commented on Nov 25

    >>>Apple will be a great stock to short this year as 3rd party MP3 players slowly kill the iPod brand and turn MP3 players into another low-priced electronic commodity.<<< I don't know about shorting AAPL, but the "death of the iPod" has been around even before the iPod hit the market. >>>Then VISTA will blow another nut into Apple’s laptop business again, same old story…<<< Don't even know where you get this. You simply sound like an Apple hater. Nothing more...

  9. T commented on Nov 25

    >>> For many if not most kids when you buy an Ipod you can clone your friend’s entire music library for free. And not they don’t care whether it’s legal or not any more than kids in the 60’s and 70’s cared if pot was illegal. Can’t do that yet with Zune.

    Not sure what you’re talking about here. If their friend’s collection is in MP3 format (i.e. converted from CDs or downloaded from online) then a Zune can copy it as easily as an iPod (or any other PMP for that matter.) If it was purchased from the iTunes store, you can put it on more than one player (LEGALLY, Apple allows up to 3 players per account) but you’ll be limited to music only from that purchasing account — if you try to buy music from your own iTunes account, the player will no longer be able to play your friend’s music.

    Neither the Apple iPod nor the Microsoft Zune provides any real solution to the music stealing issue, but neither is particularly any worse than the other. The reality is there isn’t any way to make a hardware device that both solves this AND anyone is interested in buying, since so many people have 90% of their collection in MP3 (often totally legally). Ask Sony — they tried for years to make players that don’t support MP3, and they eventually had to give up because very few people wanted to buy such a device.

  10. Bob A commented on Nov 25

    Any aac or mp3 can be converted or unprotected with inexpensive software tools. It would be interesting to see the results of a broad polling of music player owners to see what percentage of the songs on their Ipod were “legal”. Ultimately sharing, legal or illegal, most likely actually increases the overall market over what it would be if it was possible to strictly enforce payment.

  11. 42 commented on Nov 26

    all I know is at Costco yesterday the iPod display was about half-decimated while the Zune display right next to it was completely stocked.

  12. AJ commented on Nov 27

    What is your prediction about Msft after vista release?

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