More on subscriptions
Some folks have asked me about what the future of subscriptions might be (as opposed to simply listing the challenges). This is a great point.
There are several situations where subscription music can work well.
- First, music subscription can support another business. My comments have referred to standalone music subscriptions. Music subscriptions are a huge opportunity for Zune and love using Zune Pass. What's more, Zune Pass works economically for us because it's a differentiator that makes our devices more attractive. Other examples would include Amazon or Walmart using it to drive shopping traffic.
- Second, the end to end issues can get better. Zune is solving this with an integrated/end to end device to client to service offering. This means the experience can be better, plus is means that consumers get a simple message - "Get Zune" - instead of the complex combination of service from vendor A, device from vendor B, and client from vendor C.
Fundamentally, I strongly believe there are millions of music lovers who want the value that a well executed subscription service provides - and will prefer to buy devices that offer the option.
4 Comments:
Another use for the Zune Pass, or "An idea to beat WiFi iTunes".
I've been defending the lack of a WiFi Marketplace in various blog's comments mostly because I don't see a huge advantage to being able to purchase music when you're away from computer considering how infrequently I'm at a location with an open hotspot. Another reason a wireless store isn't appealing to me is because when I purchase new music it tends to be because I've discovered it via some podcast or while listening to Pandora. So, enter my idea for "delayed purchasing of discovered music."
You go to Pandora or the Zune Marketplace and from there you request a podcast, or "offline radio station", in varying length from an existing Pandora radio station. Say for starts you get 15 minute increments up to two hours. Once the service has created said playlist the tracks are downloaded and sync'd to your Zune. You use the Zune's 3-play limit on all the downloaded tracks if you're not a Pass member, otherwise you have full access to the tracks. While listening to your custom Pandora-generated playlist you rate songs you like. Upon re-syncing the Zune any 4 or 5-star tracks you rated are *automatically* purchased, or queued for purchase if you dislike auto-payments, and any 1 or 2 star rated songs are fed back to Pandora to help customize the radio station further like you to do today with the thumbs up/down mechanism.
I don't really want a way to easily purchase music, I want a better way to *discover* music. There are already some great properties in this space, namely Pandora and Last.fm and partnering with them helps get the concept to market faster while showing some love to some services that have a great following. Also by "showing some love" I mean offering a kick-back for any tracks purchased this way.
Thoughts? Any takers? Just too silly?
Yes, good points. I hope Zune doesn't abandon the business model. It's all about discovery. I would like to see some flexibility in the pricing though. Some discount for purchases maybe. Or kick backs for pyramid style selling.
If I had unlimited capacity/time/money I would hate the subscription service. I think there is a little bit of a hoarding mentality of many users today. My wife for example has music on her computer that she hasn't listened to in more then 1 year. I was trying to free up some space on our home server and asked if I could get rid of some of the music. She was less then pleased. Long story short I got what I wanted (2nd hard drive 1tb!!!) and she got to keep her music.
In my mind this is pretty typical of users now. We are holding on to every byte of data with no consideration of how useless the data might be.
Those are good points - and show how Zune Pass can be a successful subscription service where others have failed.
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