Steve Jobs is quickly becoming one of the leading forces in media
innovation. While he initially explored the field of computers, his
leadership skills have aided him in the success of two companies and
the innovation of all-in-one devices. While Steve Jobs has done well
selling Apple's superior products at a less than competitive price, he
has been the juggernaut of low priced content.
With the Internet advancing at a rapid rate content via video and
music are moving across computers with ease. Jobs has made the iPod
the most covetted Mp3 device through advertising, interface, and
innovation. "Music you can touch," is one of the new iPod slogans.
Jobs has really gone down to the bare bones of what a customer seeks.
They want to be entertained, not just at home but in the car, on a
bus, in an airplane. As a leader in his empire jobs has done extremely
well with Talent. The Apple retail locations are always swarming with
Geniuses and other Mac retail personnel. Geniuses are recruited and
trained in Apple's own School in Cupertino, California. Jobs realizes
the need for the Theory Y in his business model. As his company grew,
so did his employees with an everexpanding market on equipment
training to personal shopping.
What might seem lacking is Steve's appraisal of content provided by
television, movies and music. The online media store iTunes, launched
by apple has seen exponential growth in the past few years. The store
is only a few years old and because of it's simple pricing can be
addictive to shoppers. The problem with the success of iTunes is that
the sale of tangible media such as Dvds and Cds have dropped. However,
while they were still sinking due to piracy, they have somewhat
diverted the markets flow of cash. This cash flow follows a stream
directly through Steve Jobs hands. And how does he price them? : 99
cents per song; $1.99 per TV episode; and usually $9.99per movie
title. While this might seem like a bargain price to a customer, it
feels like construction to content providers who don't believe all
content is created equal. So why should they be priced the same.
Jobs defends that while these content are not also available online,
but they can be recorded via TiVo and distributed via the internet
with unfettered distribution. At least with iTunes content providers
can reap back some profit. With the low scale pricing it will invite
customers to purchase more content and increase business all around.
While some content providers like Vivendi and NBC want to have more
control over the pricing of their products , others see the method
among the madness. Jobs situation reminded me of Hertz and Avis, how
do you attract customers with more than just a cheaper rate? You offer
them variety. Itunes provides the conveniance the way Avis stationed
their locations to points of interests. Jobs assumes that his
customers are honest and that they want to to the right thing by
purchasing content instead if stealing it. And with equal pricing
among all the content it is harder to say no search for music on your
own when you could just easily download a guaranteed quality recording
of music, tv, and film.
Sent from my iPhone
N. Valentine
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