Three reasons why video on iPods will always be unsuccessful
Analysts say that Apple has been less than successful with selling video content – including television shows and movies – than it has been with selling music on its iTunes Store. It’s easy to see why (and this is independent of the inability to load the DVDs you already own onto the iPod).
There are three other reasons why music will always be successful on portable players, and video content never will be.
1. Music is a background function, while video requires foreground processing. I can listen to music everywhere, especially when I’m multitasking. In fact, music can help me concentrate on my work, or make a long drive more enjoyable. Video requires focus, and distracts you from your work, from driving, or from other activities.
2. Music is acceptable at work, but movies aren’t. If I see an employee listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack while working, that’s great. Howard Shore wrote wonderful instrumental music that’s perfect for background listening. At BZ Media, we have some employees who routinely listen to their iPods or other music players while they’re programming, writing e-mails, editing documents. I do that myself; if I’m not on the phone, music’s playing. But I don’t want to see an employee watching the movie itself when he/she is supposed to be working.
3. Music you listen to over and over again, while movies you watch rarely. Except for kids with their favorite Barney video, when you buy a new movie, you watch it once. Even if you loved it, you’ll then put it on the shelf, perhaps for months. By contrast, when you buy a new album, you listen to it over and over again for the first week or two – and then throw some tracks into a “favorites” list and shuffle them all the time. You get tons more mileage out of music.
Music and personal players were made for each other. Personal movies, well, they’re just not going to have the appeal of music, no matter what Apple or any of its competitors do. When you couple that with the inability to reuse your DVD library, the idea will never expand out of a narrow niche: watching TV episodes that you buy and toss.
You draw the right conclusions but you don’t do much research.
First, Apple reported no such conclusion about being less successful. Analysts may have said so, but not Apple.
Second, Steve Jobs previously said people don’t want to watch video on a small screen, they want to watch it on their large display in the living room. And he is being proven to be correct.
So why did Apple offer it? Because the very popular iPod was the best way Apple could find to jumpstart downloads for the home. Apple’s intent is to offer HD rentals – why do I think this? The AppleTV is capable of HD. Text strings related to rentals have been found in the iPod/AppleTV/ iTunes for over a year.
So what’s the holdup? The studios don’t want to offend Walmart and Target, who sell the bulk of DVDs, or Netflix or Blockbuster, who rent. Those are huge revenue streams. So Apple can’t get studio deals even though the technology is ready. So what to do? Push video onto the aggressively priced nanos, sell tens of millions of them, then go back to the studios and show them the potential market even for rentals.