online.wsj.com — From their Silicon Valley cubicles, Apple staffers have become music's unlikely power brokers. The decisions by the small group of Silicon Valley and music-industry veterans running iTunes can help put an unknown band on the map, adding millions of dollars in sales, while relegating others to the obscurity of the site's virtual back bins.
Mar 9, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountMar 9, 2007
a digg style music service for the win!
craga89Mar 9, 2007
iTunes... pfff.
brickbatMar 9, 2007
@bigtittyslutyeah..its called oink.
buffalodanMar 9, 2007
last.fm is my choice for finding how good a band is. They still allow some of my favorite bands to not rise to the top, but I trust people on there more than i trust my own friends sometimes.
Closed AccountMar 9, 2007
My ears are my first choice.
rightmindxMar 9, 2007
I'm really liking the model used by AmieStreet. Let the market directly dictate the value of a song or album. Oh yeah, and no DRM either.
Closed AccountMar 10, 2007
well this happens with everything, in the normal CD shop, at the supermarket, angywhere.
codewormMar 10, 2007
Wait, so how is this worse than (according to this very article) record companies paying $5/disc to get their CDs on an end cap at a brick and mortar store? If some people in cubicles in Cupertino didn't pick what was on Apple's front page, who would? Should there be a weekly meeting with all the labels where THEY get to decided what best serves you? It's a MUSIC STORE, people. A MUSIC STORE with a search field where you can listen to 30 seconds of any track on any album they carry. You are TOTALLY ALLOWED to look beyond the first page. You can even READ AND WRITE RECOMMENDATIONS!I'm stunned at the thing about the artist who resented having to provide extra material in exchange for promotion. It's better to have to offer money?! You think Wal Mart is going to put your CD on a banner and wave it around in front of every store for free? Artists: Fans LOVE extra material! Fans WANT it, and they're willing to PAY YOU for it!