Tuesday, June 20, 2006

iTunes flaw

As much as I appreciate what Apple has done with the iPod (by which I mean the complete package including the iPod itself, the iTunes client, and the iTunes Web service), there's a terrible limitation in the whole infrastructure. As a part of the fat client, I lose the ability to pass a URL around. And that just kills what I presume is a tremendous viral sales opportunity.

For example, imagine that I want to tell a friend over IM to buy Wynton Marsalis Septet's The Marciac Suite. Now I can provide you a URL to find out about it. Or I can provide you a URL to buy it from Amazon.com. But I can't send you a UI for iTunes. Not only that, if I google for Marciac Suite, I won't be directed to iTunes. The not-so-subtle point is that abandoning the Web paradigm, iTunes loses out on the scalability of the Web. Its actually an inconvenience for me to use iTunes these days, despite the fact that I like the service and I own two iPods.

Am I missing something here?

PS. the real point of this blog entry is that you should buy the Marciac Suite. I don't care where: it is sublime.

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