I'd love to be running external business development for iTunes - not the work with the Neanderthal big entertainment companies (blech), but the work with the many other channels available to drive sales and reward hard-working artists. As readers of this blog know, I think of iTunes as a big-time platform, not as a nifty piece of software or a nice online store. And in the long run, I believe, iTunes has the potential to be more important than the iPod.
That said, it's clear that Apple doesn't agree. Sure, iTunes is the best online music store out there. I like its guest celebrity mixes, its weekly recommendations, and the iMix feature. But information about artists, about music history, and about musical culture is painfully thin - hell, the old CDnow had far better resources. But closing in on 100 million downloads, it's a business model that works.
So here's one small-scale scenario that, if replicated, could work on a large scale for iTunes: I'm a big fan of and long-time subscriber to Acoustic Guitar magazine, a terrific monthly read for players of all levels. I just got the July issue in the mail and, as usual, poured through the gear reviews, the transcriptions, and the artist interviews. But I've also used Acoustic Guitar to find new music - it's the kind of mag that lets you into the smaller-scale indie artist and veteran roots players. Wouldn't it be cool if iTunes had a deal with Acoustic Guitar to simply publish a monthly iMix on the artists listed in each issue?
So here goes - I punch up iTunes, do a little searching, a bit of sampling and voila - here's the first monthly Acoustic Guitar iMix. It'll cost you $10.89 to download whole thing, and it's a terrific collection of music by folks like Leroy Martez Bell and Sarah Harmer, many of whom I've never heard before. For someone like Fred, who's always looking for new music, tying old media (the magazine) to new media (iTunes) would be an easy homerun. So simple! So where's the Apple biz dev guy cutting these deals?
