Apple Itunes Record Label In 2009 PartII

In Part One I discussed the basic framework for why Apple ITunes should launch its own Label, In part two I want to take it a little further and delve into the other assets that make this an excellent move and take the entire market by surprise.

1 Publishing- I know the primary reason for Apple is to sell hardware and I think most consumers understand that because they are flocking to the ongoing innovation the brand puts in the market as fast as it comes out. However owning content of all kinds is going to be the next most profitable business model of the future digital market place.

Apple should completely cut the middle out and purchase as much published music as possible and along with the label create Apple ITunes Publishing. As the labels start to fall these assets will be the first to go because of the value or perceived value they hold in the market.

By owning as much publishing rights as possible ITunes would be able to put content out on every conceivable medium possible and have an ongoing profit stream as new mediums we don't see start to emerge year after year.

2 Free Market Music- Consumers want choice when it comes to music and media, if any one medium has proved this is YouTube. By housing a vast amount of music the free market will decide what music is the best and not the label like the old model.

Apple would immediately know what the top selling music was and in effect be able to create a new top 40 that is developed by the market on a weekly basis, and not use skewed data from HitPridictor or Billboard. This is a little known dirty secret, if Hit Predictor does not chose your song it will never become a hit, this is another area where the Major Label system has stopped any music other then what they release from being heard and uses payola to dictate the markets taste.

3 Digital and Web Analytics- One of the biggest advantages that ITunes has over the labels is the power of true web analytic data, both geographical and demographic. The labels only have the ability to throw darts at a board and hope something sticks, ITunes has the ability to truly reach out to the customer and connect other similar music to the consumer and immediately appeal to their taste.

From an ITunes label perspective along with the radio concept I talked about in part one, ITunes would have the ability through regional online radio to target the right music to the customer base, by playing exactly what that region wants to here.
The labels biggest radio mistake is playing the same homogenized artist base in each market, so whether you are in New York, California or Arkansas the same thing is on the radio in each of these markets. And they don't have a clear picture of where to really sell an artist by region.

This kind of power is what makes ITunes the clear choice to crush the labels once and for all.

Lets all face it love or hate ITunes its one of the best consumer based products in the market and most everybody has an Ipod. I wrote this two part piece to at least invoke thought in people with a what if, we all know the labels are going away and they have been using and abusing artist for years.

Itunes launching a label to use a metaphor from StarWars, would finnaly kill off the dark side so all of us can once and for all hear and enjoy great music again.

I in the future will re-vist this topic after I have received enough feedback to see where peoples thoughts are on the subject. Give all of your feed back on the subject I will never censor a comment.

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