The Register rang the town bell this week, pouncing on a report from Forrester Research which declared that iTunes Store sales are on the decline. Forrester analyzed 27 months of credit card tra actio to conclude that revenue has fallen 65 percent since January 2006, and the size of the average tra action has dro ed 17 percent. These numbers, however, don't take into account tra actio like gift cards and gifted music, and I have a eaking su icion they might also have omitted other popular services like PayPal, which can be tied directly to a customer's banking account, bypa ing credit cards altogether.A le is notoriously tight-li ed about the performance of their 800 lb gorilla iTS, but Mac notes that A le reported 'above-break-even' profits for the store during last September's earnings conference call. Co idering the iTS has long been known as a paper-thin profit lo -leader to sell iPods, as well as the po ibility that the neglected portio of iTS tra actio could shift Forrester's findings, I'm a bit skeptical of these reports.
Of course, The Macalope asks 'who cares?' to all this worry of how the iTS is doing, but Geoff Duncan at Digital Trends reminds us of some interesting potential shifts in the digital distribution model that could depend directly on how well present offerings fair. Microsoft opened a Pandora's box by agreeing to pay the labels $1 for each Zune sold, and there are rumors that the jacka labels might be using this to pre ure A le into a similar deal. On an even broader scale though, Geoff also mentio something called 'blanket lice ing' where said jacka labels could a ly a tax to broadband su criptio , allowing users to continue to freely download content over any network or service they use.
We will undoubtedly receive an updated performance report on the iTunes Store from Stevie at next month's Macworld. If anything, Forrester's report and the resulting discu ion might signify a new wave of interestingne in the sea of DRM and digital distribution. Stay tuned.
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