You hafta love Ted Wallingford. Smart guy, insightful commentary, and occasionally he just “hits one out of the park” with some particularly good observations. In this case, his call for Steve Jobs to turn iTunes into the YouTube of music is brilliant. In fact, it may be the smartest thing that Jobs could do, given that YouTube is already becoming… the YouTube of music. Every day you find more and more clips from up and comers and musical wannabe’s finding their way onto YouTube. How long before the labels, and hence iTunes, become irrelevant?
Ted’s proposal is just the sort of inspired lunacy, the zig to Microsoft’s DRM zag, that Apple ought to embrace. Let people upload their own music and share the profits from downloads with them. iTunes has more market power than you think, Steve. What would happen if iTunes became the indy “label” of choice?
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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