NathanHJones.comjust thinking outloud

As with a large portion of the music listening market I own an iPod and use iTunes to download almost all of my music. It has a great selection, it’s cheap (since I rarely purchase a full cd and pick individual songs instead) and it makes syncing my music extremely easy.

The only downfall I saw with iTunes was the navigation. For me to get more than the top 10 most popular songs I had to navigate to music, and then to the individual genre’s I listen to (I occasionally search the general music top 100 but prefer to filter out the music I won’t buy) .

Anyways, when I logged in this evening I found that iTunes has added a quick link section (image below) next to the music navigation link. This allows you to jump directly to the genre of your choice bypassing an entire step.  What a simple but effective enhancement!  Great job!

The only potentially negative impact I see for iTunes is the fact that now I will likely never search the general top 100.  I will likely navigate right to the genre’s I purchase and leave it at that.  I’ll continue moving down the music longtail by discovering music through iTunes recommendations rather than searching on my own.

According to several news sources that I frequent – Time Warner is considering a usage based charge for internet services. What a ridiculous notion – that’s never going to fly!

Here is a few reasons this model is absolutely absurd:

1. Photos: Tons of people from all ages share photos online. One bummer about photos…they tend to do be kind of big files, unless you limit that on your camera or edit them, which is really going to eat up your bandwidth. More bandwidth = more money.
2. Music: Downloading music from iTunes does it’s damage to your bandwidth as well. With an average size (at least of my songs) averaging between 2.8 and 3.2 megabytes a piece you’re you could be looking at a pretty expensive internet bill if you’re an avid downloader of music.
3. TV/Movies: With the rise of the internet it’s inevitable that videos and TV will eventually be delivered via the internet. In fact, it’s already in the works. Apple (iTunes) and Netflix are already offering TV and movie offerings streamed directly to you over the internet.

I’m sure that part of the reason they’re looking into this is because of the rise in popularity of online video (YouTube et al) and photo sharing (pick any random website/social network and they probably offer photo hosting/sharing…) which taxes the service providers network. While I’d like to feel sorry for Time Warner (and other internet providers for that matter) and the fact that they feel their network is being used too much (what did they think would happen)…I find it rather difficult given the fact they (Time Warner Cable: TWC) made almost $2 billion in profit for fiscal year 2006. I hope everyone caught that hint of sarcasm.

I already have a problem with what cable companies are charging for ‘unlimited’ (even though it was discovered that Comcast wasn’t exactly net neutral) access to the internet and now they want to put limits or charge you more?!? What is going through the minds of these companies these days?!? Is that what a CEO that makes nearly $9.5 million dollars a year thinks up?