ITMS Ideas

My latest experience with the iTunes Music Store, and the buzz surrounding Buy.com's imminent launch of a competing service , got me thinking about the problems with ITMS. It's a great store, to be sure. Being able to browse by category with 30 second full-quality previews is awesome. However, there seems to be a core flaw with the ITMS experience: shopping at the iTunes Music Store is like shopping in a store with no other people.

As you browse ITMS, there is no indication that other people are also shopping in the store. About the only network effect is the "Listeners who bought this also bought" section. Apple really needs to be careful or Amazon will eat their lunch with reviews, comments, wishlists (!), and other advanced collaboration features. Jason tipped me off to the huge potential of a wishlist feature. Wouldn't it be great if you could create a list of songs you wanted to buy, and other people could purchase songs from your list for you? At 99 cents a pop, I'm sure a lot of people would have fun purchasing songs for others to thank them, or just to send them a greeting.

I'm sure the bright minds at Apple are aware of these issues, I just hope they are correcting them quickly enough to beat the Amazon juggernaut and other online music store wannabes.