With today’s online distribution, record companies are losing album sales due to the fact that people can now just purchase songs they like instead of an entire album. Honestly, buying on a per song basis makes much more sense to me. Having said that there’s still something nice about albums of past. It’s getting the other content that makes the experience a whole lot better.

So according to the article, Apple will be making a new kind of “digital albums”. This is not your ordinary PDF file with pictures and text. Instead it will be more interactive. You can even play the songs direct from the album without going through iTunes. That’s pretty cool. Add some lyrics, photos and other multimedia content and it will really make for a compelling reason to buy albums again.

This coincides with the rumored release of a “tablet” style device from Apple. We’ll see this fall if all of these comes to fruition.

Post from: EveryJoe

Apple and Labels To Launch “Digital Albums”

Apple had to give in sometime to the demands of the record labels, who are currently struggling with dipping CD sales and trying to find the best strategy to leverage digital downloads. In exchange Apple got the record companies to drop DRM for the songs. Apple has completed migrating it’s song library to the DRM less version. This is good for consumers.

Another thing that the record labels agreed on was to allow people to download songs via the iPhone and the iPod Touch. So all in all it was a good deal.

I’ve always been a fan of simplicity. I feel that the best way to get loyal customers is to make it easy and pleasurable for them to buy your products. This is what Apple did for iTunes. It was a no-brainer, at the price point they set, you almost didn’t need to think about whether or not you’ll buy a song. It was that easy and cheap.

However, changing times call for a change in strategy as well. While variable pricing means the buying gets a little more complicated, I think it’s not a big step down. With only 3 tiers, it’s still fairly easy to buy a song. Sure the $1.29 $.30 more and considering we’re going through tough economic times, I think having the songs DRM free is a good trade-off. In the interim this is a workable solutin wherein everyone will be satisfied.

Is variable pricing right? I think at this time, it is. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.

Post from: EveryJoe

Is iTunes Variable Pricing Right?

On this occasion, the super blog has two interesting posts: Our Best Posts From 2005 to 2009, and Weirdest and Most Controversial Posts.

I am especially thankful to Gina Trapani, the blog’s founding editor, for introducing me to Cygwin and the todo.sh. She used to make frequent posts but has been writing only a weekly column on the blog these days. She released a book, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better, which consists of all the best hacks from Lifehacker.com’s archives, and her personal manifesto on working more efficiently in the digital age. Check out the official web site of Upgrade Your Life to browse the table of contents and download a sample chapter.

Happy birthday, Lifehacker! Many happy returns of the day. I am a regular visitor of Lifehacker, a big user of Cygwin, and I hope that the four-hour-long course that I did today on time management nudges me enough to become a daily user of todo.sh.

In this spirit, dear readers, here is the ultimate list of free Windows software from Microsoft. Enjoy.

Post from: EveryJoe

Happy Birthday Lifehacker