The free singles were okay but the implementation was somewhat flawed. If you downloaded a single from an album you'd expect that the album that the single was associated with would now be in your "Complete My Album" list. Nope. That would have made sense and provided incentive and a visual cue to purchase the rest of the album, albeit now at a reduced price. You could still accomplish this manually but your iTunes library would show two albums, one for the single and one for the album without (or even with) the same single. I suspect but cannot confirm that if you downloaded the remaining album contents without the "free" single the album would now appear on your Complete My Album list.
Anyway you cut it this is not a big deal. I personally suspect that Apple is in the midst of creating some sort of customer loyalty program around iTunes that will provide a more complete, focused, intelligent, and coherent solution that includes more targeted and relevant incentives and freebies for its most loyal/profitable customers. The holiday giveaways and free songs are broad brush attempts to incentivize customers to discover and buy more iTunes fronted content products. I'd bet the ROI on these broad based programs has been very low.
Apple has a massive customer base and probably has a clearer picture of its customer's personal buying habits and preferences than any other company on the planet except for Amazon. They see the same customers buying apps, books, music, movies, iOS devices, OSX devices, and services like iCloud drive and iTunes Match. This is all being done within the Apple ecosystem. Don't you think they'd have a pretty decent understanding of what seems to attract and motivate their customers - not only within a single product/content category but across categories? So far they don't seem to be tapping into this knowledge about their customers in a mutually rewarding and beneficial way that reaches down to a personal level. Things like a free song of the week and holiday incentives for everyone are rather clumsy and feeble attempts at spurring interest. At the very least offering individual customers an individually selected free song of the week that fits within their genre and type of music they tend to purchase makes a lot more sense. Heck, they already have the Genius model in place for priming this model. Or maybe they give customers time-limited free streaming through Beats Music for albums that fit individual customer preferences and tendencies. Or maybe customers get a price break on content purchases in other categories other than the ones they tend to purchase, like a free movie every now and then for customers who purchase a lot of music or books.
So my optimistic perspective is that Apple has finally come around to realizing that they aren't being very smart about how they make use of the individual level of connectedness and understanding that they've established around their customer base. I hope the deprecation of these low fidelity, broad target, and ineffective approaches to incentive purchases is a sign that they are finally "getting it" with respect to building on the customer relationships, connectivity, and advocacy they've worked so hard to establish. If they can pull it off it'll be a win-win scenario for Apple and for its customers.
Comments
Good; it was all a load of rubbish anyway.
Oh for the days when people knew how to write good music and could sing well.
Yes, I miss Johann Sebastian Bach. The Mass in D Minor blows doors on any vocal composition written in the past fifty years.
Ah well...
Good; it was all a load of rubbish anyway.
Oh for the days when people knew how to write good music and could sing well.
At least we still have recordings of those past times.
Daily Mail comments section is that way ---->
I think you mean the Mass in B minor.
In which case, I agree.
The free singles were okay but the implementation was somewhat flawed. If you downloaded a single from an album you'd expect that the album that the single was associated with would now be in your "Complete My Album" list. Nope. That would have made sense and provided incentive and a visual cue to purchase the rest of the album, albeit now at a reduced price. You could still accomplish this manually but your iTunes library would show two albums, one for the single and one for the album without (or even with) the same single. I suspect but cannot confirm that if you downloaded the remaining album contents without the "free" single the album would now appear on your Complete My Album list.
Anyway you cut it this is not a big deal. I personally suspect that Apple is in the midst of creating some sort of customer loyalty program around iTunes that will provide a more complete, focused, intelligent, and coherent solution that includes more targeted and relevant incentives and freebies for its most loyal/profitable customers. The holiday giveaways and free songs are broad brush attempts to incentivize customers to discover and buy more iTunes fronted content products. I'd bet the ROI on these broad based programs has been very low.
Apple has a massive customer base and probably has a clearer picture of its customer's personal buying habits and preferences than any other company on the planet except for Amazon. They see the same customers buying apps, books, music, movies, iOS devices, OSX devices, and services like iCloud drive and iTunes Match. This is all being done within the Apple ecosystem. Don't you think they'd have a pretty decent understanding of what seems to attract and motivate their customers - not only within a single product/content category but across categories? So far they don't seem to be tapping into this knowledge about their customers in a mutually rewarding and beneficial way that reaches down to a personal level. Things like a free song of the week and holiday incentives for everyone are rather clumsy and feeble attempts at spurring interest. At the very least offering individual customers an individually selected free song of the week that fits within their genre and type of music they tend to purchase makes a lot more sense. Heck, they already have the Genius model in place for priming this model. Or maybe they give customers time-limited free streaming through Beats Music for albums that fit individual customer preferences and tendencies. Or maybe customers get a price break on content purchases in other categories other than the ones they tend to purchase, like a free movie every now and then for customers who purchase a lot of music or books.
So my optimistic perspective is that Apple has finally come around to realizing that they aren't being very smart about how they make use of the individual level of connectedness and understanding that they've established around their customer base. I hope the deprecation of these low fidelity, broad target, and ineffective approaches to incentive purchases is a sign that they are finally "getting it" with respect to building on the customer relationships, connectivity, and advocacy they've worked so hard to establish. If they can pull it off it'll be a win-win scenario for Apple and for its customers.
Good; it was all a load of rubbish anyway.
Oh for the days when people knew how to write good music and could sing well.
At least we still have recordings of those past times.
I'm counting down the days until auto tune disappears.
Old news, I tweeted that to @TipAppleInsider on 8th Jan. I guess their account is broken or not being checked this year...
But some interesting changes for Apple, I guess the U2 free album has changed their views on giving things away for 'free'
Eh. Starbucks still has the Freebie of the Week. I'll get it there. I can scan the code while I'm waiting for my coffee. No biggie.
Ha!! Yeah, they do, don't they? I'm gonna remember that.