iTunes wants yo mon-aay!
…or, ‘be careful what you wish for’.
The iTunes music store, like many online stores before it, recommends songs based on others purchases. You can (supposedly) get some insight into new music based on the relationships between what others have purchased. There are pluses and minuses– what if someone bought Kenny Loggins for their mom, but also purchased the White Stripes?
Apple provided this information thru the music store interface–until now.
Update to iTunes 6.02 and you’ll see what Apple is calling the Mini Store. (Turn it on and off in your Edit menu)
It updates based on what you’re playing in your current library. Will it get me to buy more music from Apple? Naw, not really. But will it maybe show me some new songs? Sure will. And that’s pretty cool. Commerce and convenience– very cool.
I was wondering when you were going to post about this.
It only works half the time…
So, not knowing the technology all that well, is there any similarities to the whole Sony fiasco? I mean, not that I have any pirated music on my itunes or anything, but should I be worried that my itunes is communicating directly with the itunes store?
Well, short of actually decoding the packets being sent back to Apple, what I’ve read is that there is no information being stored– meaning Apple isn’t tracking the data back to individual users.
I honestly wish that they would store info, so that my music library could be used to create a better recommendation algorithm. I’ve said in the past that I wish that Apple would provide a certain number of free tracks based on the amount of tracks uploaded. This could also help prompt the use of the rating system in iTunes.
From a business standpoint, I don’t think Apple can afford to be tripped up from the amount of negative press this would generate– they’re in the business of selling music not policing pirates.
In the meantime…all you have to do is go to the edit menu and turn off the store if you prefer not to see the 24×7 info-mercial.