Why Sony Can't Create An iTunes For Movies
from the too-much-conflict dept
As if the content companies haven't already been making fools of themselves with some recent strategic decisions, things are only going to get worse. Sony is now saying that it wants to create an "iTunes for movies," saying it will "set business models, pricing models, distribution models like (Apple chief Steve) Jobs did for music, but for the film industry." First of all, that's simply not going to happen. Sony is in the content business itself -- so its competitors in the movie business probably aren't going to be thrilled about contributing to its movie store. However, even if they can set up business models, pricing models and distribution models just like iTunes, they've totally missed the point. That, alone, is not what made iTunes successful. It's the customer experience. Apple made the customer experience work. They made it easy. While some of their decisions have been less than user friendly concerning copy protection and the forced-iPod connection -- overall it's the user experience that makes iTunes work. That means, for the most part, not treating your customers like criminals. However, Sony's entertainment execs have made it clear that they already view their customers as criminals and will do everything they can to lock all their content down. Hell, just take a look at Sony's widely disparaged already existing iTunes clone for music to see how copying the business model isn't nearly enough.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
And to do that, they'd basically be best off giving commercial and programmatic support to MPlayer... ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DVD quality? that'll kill'em
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sony is lost in the new Software World
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Sony is lost in the new Software World
[ link to this | view in thread ]
QuickTime 7
[ link to this | view in thread ]