Sep 02
iTunes Affiliation Scheme cool or not?
2004 at 02.38 am posted by Veerle
This sounds very interesting and I think this idea has great potential since most bloggers already link to iTunes or Amazon anyway. This iTunes Affiliation Scheme will make it possible to earn a little money by showing your musical taste to your readers. Personally I find those music links interesting because it’s a great way to discover otherwise unknown music. It’s not all intrusive or annoying, at least not to me.
To qualify for this program your site should at least have a thousand visitor a month, a pretty reasonable amount. According to Apple you can earn 5% of all qualifying revenue generate in a single session (defined as a 24-hour period) that occurs on a click-through from your site. How much you earn depends on how many of your visitors click on the iTunes links and make a purchase at our site.
I think this affiliation scheme will spread like a cold on the Internet and it’s a great idea to promote music and the iTunes Music store. To me the only condition would be that you can choose how things look and from what I have been reading it looks like that’s the case here. No large banners just some album icons on the homepage or so. Currently there are no music links here but as the iTunes music store will be available in the rest of Europe in October I’m considering in signing up or it’s something to give some thought.
What’s your opinion on the subject? Would you find this intrusive or annoying?
15served
1
I am not in the music business but I think it will bring some profits to the musical websites and to the band websites.
Check out the M$ ripost to iTunes: http://beta.music.msn.com/music
I really like the design ... clean and simple. Check out the login screen ... how cool is that?
2
Bogdan, I’ve seen it and I think it can’t be compared to the iTunes Music Store. The fact that you need to login is already a barrier and the “one-click” approach (licensed from Amazon) of Apple is just simple easy and fast, and lets not forget it is smartly integrated into iTunes. Let us get back on topic now ;-)
3
The main advantage of iTunes is that it was first. The MSN music store will be integrated in Media Player 10 (equivalent of iTunes) which is to be launched these days. You need to login only once with the .NET Passport. You will be able to buy music using both the website and the application (WMP10). In Apple case you can only install and use iTunes.
Also the melodies on iTunes are only for iPod but on MSN you can use the melodies on more than 70 devices which support WMA.
There are advantages on both parts. The competition is good for us, the consumers. You read more about this here http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=23771&category=main
4
Bogdan But you can burn music purchased in iTunes Music Store and play it wherever you want. Would it be possible with MSN? MSN will be also available only in US (as far as I know)
5
@Milanek Yes, you are right but the latest mp3 players don’t use CDs. They have built in memory. I am sure if music bought from iTunes can be converted into mp3s and used on all the devices. From what I have read the melodies are encoded in a proprietary format and can be played only on iPod and of course burned on CDs. Right ... and you can then rip the CD into mp3s :) I don’t have a Mac so I don’t really know how this works. I just downloaded MSN 10 final version and it alows you to burn music on CDs. The previous version also supports that.
About the availability ... I think if you have a credit card you will be able to pay for the music from everywhere. Still not sure.
Forgot to mention there is another player in this game: http://musicstore.Real.com . They are selling mp3s for only 0.49$. They have a promotion I think. Anyway, in my opinion, their design sucks :)
Again, this is best for consumers ... everyone will be able to choose what is better for him.
6
Guys, this wasn’t a post about MSN or Microsoft or so, but the topic was the iTunes affiliate program. This was about putting an album icon on the homepage with a direct link to the iTunes Music store and if that was a good idea. Please stay on topic.
7
I just received my signup conformation from the iTunes Affiliate program (a really weird signup process by the way). And from messing around with it for a few minutes here are my thoughts. I am not sure if this is coming later, but as of now, you can’t just slap a cd cover up on your site and link it to the iTunes store using your affiliate number and get money. They have a set list of text ads for the iTunes store in general and small banners that match the rotating banners on the front page of the iTunes store. There seems to be no way right now to link to any cd you want (or any cd) except from the 10 or so that are featured for the week. It is real shame that there is not some kind of code generator form where you search for a song or cd and it spits back the right code to slap on your site. Oh well, it was the thought that counts I guess.
8
@ Josh: Thanks this was very helpful. For me the condition to join was that I could choose my own music and define the look and feel of it. Let’s hope that those things still will come and that you can define the music. I think it has to work that way to became a success. Thanks again for the helpful post.
9
I have heard of iTunes, but I must admit that I do not see any reason to use it. All my music files are stored on my desktop computer. Maybe I just don’t get it.
With regards to the affiliate programme, do I need to be an iTunes user in order to be an affiliate?
10
Ok, I just did some more in-depth research and I admit I was quite misinformed. I see that iTunes is a media player.
Currently I use WMP. What benefits are there to switching to iTunes?
11
@Kim: I will try to answer as good as possible ;-)
With regards to the affiliate program, do I need to be an iTunes user in order to be an affiliate?
You don’t have to be an iTunes user to use the affiliate program. Your site has to have a thousand visitors a month. Apple will check your site if it fits their profile.
What benefits are there to switching to iTunes?
These are my personal thoughts on the benefits of using iTunes. With iTunes you import your cd’s in MP3 format without having to pay extra for an MP3 converter as needed in WMP. Other formats (aif, wav, AAC...) are available too. It’s much easier to make smart play-lists then in WMP. A smart play-list is filter that you can apply on the information that was entered in info fields. Integration of the iTunes Music Store is a very handy way to shop for songs or albums. If you ever buy an iPod or an iPod Mini it is the program that syncs perfectly everytime without any technical hassle. In short iTunes has the simplicity where Apple is famous for and best of al it’s free.
12
well i am really considering to look how to integrate it in photoblog.net. why? simple.
who loves the google ads? they are not nice designed, but in fact they don’t bother as much as banners. yet, i really love ads that are specific to a users page. Music is such a thing, books as well.
Typepad understood this good and gets a LOT of income through their integrated offer to show users selection -see www.monuments.nu-
But in my case I want to be the one who gets this money since I do all the work and Typepad already GETS some of my money -for using the program and hosting-
Amazon is such another thing that is really cute. Should check it out how to integrate.
It just really fits your personality to put such things on your site, and indeed shows a little bit more of you, revealing your music taste/book taste
Better than banners and google ads.
13
I downloaded iTunes, and it looks pretty cool. However, I cannot find a way to import my playlists from WMP. Is this possible? I don’t feel like going through hundreds of songs again to recreate the playlists.
14
@Kim: You don’t have to go through hundreds of songs again. Apple made it easy to understand how to use iTunes by putting some QuickTime movies on the web showing examples. You have two possibilities, play-lists and smart-playlists both ways are explained in these movies.
15
I meant, going through hundreds of songs to re-create my playlists.
I couldn’t find a way to import my playlists from WMP, so I decided to just recreate them. It is easier to create playlists in iTunes, because you can just drag them over. Because of that, it didn’t take long.