Apple launches iTunes affiliate program, 125 million served
Apple today launched the iTunes Affiliate Program, making it the first download music store to offer direct links to a la carte singles and albums that generate paid commissions to affiliate websites. The iTunes Affiliate Program will complement other iTunes programs including iTunes on Campus, which offers free site licenses to colleges and universities, and the iTunes Volume Discount Program, which provides bulk song downloads at a discount. Apple also announced that the iTunes music service has sold over 125 million songs to date, which includes a total of 5 million songs sold from its European music store.
The company also said that affiliates that sign up for the iTunes Affiliate Program between now and September 15th will be automatically entered to win an iPod mini. The new program is the latest initiative from Apple to help businesses and organizations use the popularity of digital music for marketing and awareness related purposes.
The company also said that affiliates that sign up for the iTunes Affiliate Program between now and September 15th will be automatically entered to win an iPod mini. The new program is the latest initiative from Apple to help businesses and organizations use the popularity of digital music for marketing and awareness related purposes.
Comments
I can see blogs, websites, and record companies changing their links to reference iTMS, rather than Amazon, to make a little cash, just like many, even corporate sites, link to Amazon with affiliate links now.
There are some very clever people at Apple - now they only have to take on MSN. Let's just hope they can outsmart them.
There are some very clever people at Apple - now they only have to take on MSN. Let's just hope they can outsmart them.
They can. This is MS we're talking about. As long as Apple's iPod is "the" player to have Apple has the advantage. Note that MS markets that they are compatible with 60 devices. Well that means nothing if the iPod owns 58% of the market. No one cares about second place.
I wonder what Apple can do to improve their chances, over and above what they are already doing?
(Notice that you can also sell Apple hardware/software through the same program, not just tunes!)
Combine the Itunes Affliate program with the University program. Give the University a special version of iTunes that identifies the university particularly when students use it to connect and buy songs. Then the University gets the percentage, the same as affiliates do. That way the University is especially incentivized to encourage iTunes use, since they would then get a cut of it.
They could even put audio recordings of lectures, student news .. heck, even the campus radio station could be streamed via iTunes.
Originally posted by othello
but you have to have a minimum of 1000 unique visitors a day to your site to be accepted. amazon lets anyone sign-up. ok, apple wants to exercise some control here, but they don't want to be too restrictive.
I'm guessing this is to prevent them from becoming too overwhelmed at first. In the future they may expand this.
At some point Apple will have to license the DRM to others, though, I don't know where that "sweet spot" will be. Unlike with computers, Apple now has the volume discount advantage and should compete just fine with the rest of the industry on a level playing field ... as long as Microsoft doesn't get to integrate music at the OS level the way they have been trying the last few years with everything else.
With Europe coming up to speed and HP, the iTunes store servers will be really put to a test. Now if Apple can get into the India and China markets first.....ooooooo
Originally posted by MacGregor
This affiliate program is a great start and obviously the partnership with HP will carry its own inertia to keep the iPod and iTunes ahead of all of the MSoft players for awhile.
At some point Apple will have to license the DRM to others, though, I don't know where that "sweet spot" will be. Unlike with computers, Apple now has the volume discount advantage and should compete just fine with the rest of the industry on a level playing field ... as long as Microsoft doesn't get to integrate music at the OS level the way they have been trying the last few years with everything else.
With Europe coming up to speed and HP, the iTunes store servers will be really put to a test. Now if Apple can get into the India and China markets first.....ooooooo
My theory on when (assuming they have this in their plans) they'll license FairPlay is at the point where hardware margins hit the level they could get on a per device license fee from other digital music hardware vendors.