Sales of digital singles booming

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Sales of digital singles booming

The Washington Post reports that digital music single sales grew by 150 percent last year, but may have resulted in fewer CD album sales in stores.

“As iPods and other MP3 players outsell CD players, sales of downloaded singles are booming accordingly,” the publication says. “Though sales of full-length albums were down 7.2 percent last year, the digital singles market grew by 150 percent, with 352.7 million individual songs sold online, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was by far the highest figure for singles sales in any format since 1973, the first year for which Recording Industry Association of America shipment data are available for singles.”

“In late December 2005, weekly singles sales topped CD sales for the first time, as American consumers—many of them flush with holiday gift cards and loading new MP3 players—purchased 19.9 million digital tracks but just 16.8 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan.”

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Comments

1

I got my 15 year-old daughter a membership to YourMusic.com where she can select one CD each month for $5.99; crazy kid still prefers the iTMS.

Posted by Galley in Greenville, SC on February 8, 2006 at 9:16 AM (PDT)

2

Of course sales of singles went up. Why would anyone want to buy a full album? Most albums that come out today only have 2 or 3 good songs. Maybe the RIAA should stop marketing these crappy artist and put some real artist on the front line. You know those people who put their soul into the music and produce great albums where all fifteen songs are good? Then we’d see more sales of full albums. Go out there and find some real talent music industry! Leave the Britney Spears and Taking Back Sundays of the world were they need to be, singing in front of their mirrors wishing they had talent.

Posted by Glorybox3737 on February 8, 2006 at 9:18 AM (PDT)

3

have the new 60g pod what software do you recomend to transfer dvd movies to it?

Posted by MIKE on February 8, 2006 at 10:12 AM (PDT)

4

For an entirely different and brilliant take on digital media, check out ‘Digital Music Biz Ain’t Booming’ by Joanna Glasner in WIRED online yesterday.
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70170-0.html?tw=wn_index_13

Here’s a snip:
“As for songs, people downloaded 420 million single tracks from the internet last year, about 20 times more than two years earlier.

“Those numbers may sound encouraging. But put in perspective, it’s hard not to conclude that these are actually piddly sums.

“Look at it this way. According to Box Office Mojo, a movie-data site, the top-grossing films of 2005 (based on worldwide revenue recorded as of Monday) were:

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: $880.2 million
2. Star Wars: Episode II—Revenge of the Sith: $848.5 million
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: $638 million
4. War of the Worlds: $591.4 million
5. King Kong: $534.6 million
6. Madagascar: $527.6 million
7. Mr. & Mrs. Smith: $477.5 million
8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: $473.4 million
9. Batman Begins: $371.9 million
10. Hitch: $368.1 million”

She breaks it down in simple logical terms, and points out that they’d do a lot more business if they actually lowered the price rather than raise it like the RIAA wants…

Posted by Christopher on February 8, 2006 at 10:17 AM (PDT)

5

depends if you use a Mac or Windows…

for Mac use Handbrake http://handbrake.m0k.org/ to convert the ‘Video TS’ folder on the DVD to an MPEG 4 video. You will probably need to reduce the resolution too with handbrake, click on Picture settings and reduce it to about 500 wide…

(you may also want Mac the Ripper to rip the DVD to your hard drive… just google ‘Mac the Ripper’ to find it)

for Windows its not as easy, but I think there is a beta of handbrake for windows so get that and try and find a decent dvd ripper too but i don’t know of any :(...

Posted by Matthew on February 8, 2006 at 12:22 PM (PDT)

6

The above is in reply to MIKE

Posted by Matthew on February 8, 2006 at 12:27 PM (PDT)

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