I was reading an article on Ars Technica today Report: music fans cling to CD’s, but discover music online which highlights some research that has come from two companies in the UK. Essentially it states that out of a group of music lovers between the ages of 14 & 64, 73% of this group preferred to purchase their music in CD form rather than digitally over the internet.
To me this figure comes as a bit of a shock, personally we have pretty much entirely switched our music purchasing to online usually using iTunes and sometimes other digital/online methods. In fact I can’t even remember the last CD that we actually purchased? To me the thought of going to a music store and buying a CD is a purchase method that is long gone. Give me the ease of a click of a mouse for this method of getting my music any-day. This way it’s already in the best format for what I use, and that is to transfer it between my digital devices such as other computers/iphone/ipod etc, and if I need to make a CD then I burn one (haven’t done this for quite some time either).
My music purchasing behaviour has probably changed though since it became so easy to buy music over the internet in the sense that I only purchase the songs I want. I have not actually bought a whole album in this way, maybe because I don’t feel the need to buy songs that I don’t particularly like. It would seem that digital downloads are used by record companies in a similar way to what concerts were in the past, as a marketing & promotional tool. Record companies would throw concerts and tours to promote record sales, maybe this is the new way for them to promote the purchase of full CD albums?!?
Whatever is going on out there by looking at history it is pretty safe to say that one day the CD will be obsolete, and probably as we move into an age where GEN Y’s and Millennial’s get greater purchasing power their impatience and the need to ‘have it now’ will probably see digital sales grow to be the way of the future. So while I definitely believe that one of these days the CD will go the way of Vinyl records and cassette tapes, the day hasn’t quite arrived as early as I thought.
How do you choose to purchase your music? Do you have some thoughts about these purchase behaviour changes? If so leave a comment!!!
Posted by Luke | Posted on 10-07-2009
Category : Internet/Tech
Tags: 3G, broadband, Gadgets, internet, price, Wireless
I think that the invention of wireless broadband dongles is one of the greatest things to come to broadband internet access in the last few years, mainly because it allows you to get online anywhere you have 3G mobile phone coverage and on top of this it allows people who only have one computer in the home the freedom of doing away with landlines and DSL at home.
I do however have a bit of an issue with the phone companies over these devices. While the plans for them are fine if this is your only method of access to the internet, I think it is a terrible ripoff if you allready have your home broadband and possibly your mobile phone with that carrier as well. If you are anything like us we already have the highest broadband plan our service provider allows which costs us over $100 a month, and we also both have our phones with the same carrier thats almost another $100 a month there as well. I feel that it is pointless paying another $50 dollars a month over two years or having an even more expensive pre-paid arrangement just to allow you to access the web anywhere you go.
What I would like to see mobile carriers do is bundle their products, what would be so wrong with us paying a little extra each month say $10-$20 to have a dongle that is linked to our home broadband account. Allowing us to utilise the data allowance we have at home, anywhere in the country. Rather than having another whole contract for a separate device giving us an extra 1-5 gig’s of data, which we allready get (and often don’t use) in our home broadband anyway.
I understand that there are probably extra costs associated with providing broadband via 3G but I think that it makes good sense, not only that but it would give the company who adopts it a good marketing and competitive advantage over the competitors in the industry.
Do you have any thoughts on this topic? If so please feel free to leave a comment below!
The Palm Pre has recently been released in America, and while I doubt we will see it here in Australia for quite some time due to the fact that it’s currently only a CDMA handset (no longer supported on Aussie networks) it has got an accessory that I would’ve loved to see on the newest model of Apple’s iPhone. The accessory that I’m referring to is Inductive Charging.
Inductive charging is a pretty neat technology that allows you to charge devices without physically plugging them to a power cable. There are currently charging mats out there that are square little rubbery looking mats that you can sit several devices on and charge them.
The pictures above are of the Palm Touchstone, the idea here is that the round base is connected to a power source, and you replace the standard back cover of the device with the touchstone back cover – pictured on the left. You can then simply sit your phone on top of the touchstone base and it charges your phone for you.
I think this is a great idea and can’t believe that it hasn’t been implemented on more devices. It may be a little gimmicky as it is just another way of achieving the same result that you can get when plugging in a power cable but it is something I would love to have! With the current iPhone 3GS coming out last month, it didn’t really have any compelling features that have prompted me to break my current contract and upgrade to the new model, this inductive charging, if offered on the iPhone 3GS would’ve given me a good reason to upgrade!!
