May 01, 2003

iTunes Music Store appears to be a hit.

Per Billboard :

Observers are calling the launch of Apple Computer’s digital music service the iTunes Music Store an overwhelming success.

The Billboard site is subscription only, but Macworld discusses the article:

Apple’s iTunes Music Service sold an estimated 275,000 tracks at 99 each in its first 18 hours, Billboard reports .

TERROR ATTACKS FEWEST SINCE ‘69.

This is what it’s all about.

Terrorist attacks decreased sharply worldwide in 2002 to their lowest level since 1969, the State Department’s annual report released yesterday shows, and Secretary of State Colin Powell hailed the war on terrorism for foiling the deadly plots.

“The last time the annual total fell below 200 attacks was in 1969, shortly after the advent of modern terrorism,” said Cofer Black, State Department coordinator for counterterrorism. The report showed a steep reduction in attacks by “international terrorists” to 199 in 2002 from 355 a year earlier ? a 44 percent drop. The number of deaths fell to 725 from 3,295 in 2001, a year that included the September 11 attacks, the report said. “Terrorist cells have been broken up, networks disrupted and plots foiled,” Mr. Powell told reporters as the report was released. “But terrorism still casts its grim shadow across the globe.”

This appears to refute the argument that the war in Iraq will lead to more terrorism.

See my previous post, Why the War is Having the Right Effect on Terrorists.

Survey: 13-24 year-olds are getting sick of reality TV.

Broadcasting & Cable reports (subscription required for the link):

Market research firm Bolt Inc. said 13- through 24-year-olds are getting sick of reality TV, according to a survey the firm recently conducted.

Bolt said 68 percent of those surveyed said they are tiring of reality programs, while 63 percent said they realize reality TV isn?t too real.

Music Downloading: Are We There Yet?

When Steve Jobs announced the iTunes Music Store, he said that the AAC file format sounded, in some cases, “better than CDs.” That’s a clever way of saying that AAC doesn’t sound exactly the same as CDs, which it can’t, because AAC is what’s called a “lossy” compression method. That means it loses information when it compresses an audio file. This is different from Zip or Stuffit compression, which you can use on data files without losing a single byte. So by definition there’s no way that AAC can preserve the full sound of an AIFF file.

This means we’re not there yet – that is, we’ve got a ways to go before we have the whole online music distribution thing working correctly.

Music downloading is still just the Millenium version of radio – a good way to hear new songs, and even take them with you when you’re out.