In the latest from the iPod world, it would appear that iPods increase musical awareness. This probably doesn't come as one of the most amazing of revelations for anyone who owns an iPod or any other digital player - after all, how easy has iTunes made it to make the twitch purchase? Who hasn't come home late at night from the pub and trawled iTunes for early eighties rave anthems, early Smiths tracks, rare albums from the Byrds or the latest R&B track that you heard on the radio on the way home? Well, maybe you haven't - but I guess you now know what passes for a social life in my world.
The digital culture eggheads at Jupiter Research have compiled a large report on the subject showing the digital music marketplace has increased adult consumption of digital music, though they conclude that traditional music promotion through radio and music videos are still important for musical awareness.
In other iPod related news, New Zealand has finally entered the digital age with Apple finally introducing iTunes to the land of the hobbits. I'm sure that Frodo must be very pleased - finally.
[Via Playlist]
1. I doubt iTunes played a significant role in this. Rather, I tend to consider that it is the vast availability of MP3s on P2P networks that helped increase this awareness. It seems to me that the scheme goes this way : people discovered MP3, and bought a digital player. Then, they realized P2P networks existed and they spent some time leeching to discover some new things, and of course get some stuff they're familiar with.
I've never bought anything on iTunes, but P2P networks certainly increased my music awareness, before I even bought an MP3 player !
As for the conclusion that radio and music videos continue to play a significant role in this awareness, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised : the greater the possibilities for products (whichever they may be), the more you need help in choosing them. Radios and the lot serve as a filter. We come from days where you needed radios to know what the music you'd be buying would sound like, before you even went to listen to it in a concert. Today, it has become easier to pre-listen to a CD before you buy it, by simply downloading it. But at the same time, musical offer has dramatically increased. So the radios' role shifts from a pre-listening helper to an aggregator, a filter.
Posted at 5:40PM on Dec 10th 2006 by Patrick