Everyone Wants To Offer The Next iTunes

Overhype

from the copycats-r-us dept

With the initial success of Apple’s iTunes downloadable music store, it appears that plenty of other companies are scrambling to set up iTunes clones. Of course, many of these efforts are likely going to be “me too” plays that won’t go very far. Apple did a great job putting their offering together – and to hype it to the right level before opening the doors, thus guaranteeing huge initial demand (though, some analysts are now skeptical as to how long it will keep up). I’m not convinced that a similar copycat offering from an AOL or a Yahoo will have quite the same impact, though it’s unlikely to stop them. It would be a lot more impressive if one of these companies worked out a way to offer much more than iTunes, such as music files that didn’t come with restrictive digital rights management or a system that really added the benefit of music sharing as opposed to music downloading.