Gordon’s Place

My mate Ian was recently bitching about the price of videos in the new version of the iTunes Music Store. Got to agree with him, there’s almost nothing they sell at the moment that I would drop a couple of quid on. Perhaps if I was hooked on Lost ( which I am ) and had missed an episode, I’d buy that episode but that’s about it. If I wanted the series I’d get the DVD, as Russ pointed out you get so much more for your money. As for music, it’s an audio thing, not a video thing. I do other things while I’m listening. I don’t just listen.

I’ve been thinking about what I would drop £2 a pop on a semi-regular basis for and I can only come up with one idea. I think Apple should follow the example set by the big broadcasters and get sports clips into the iTunes music store. Specifically, I want to pay £2 on a Saturday night on one of the few occaisons that my team score a couple of goals and download the highlights of the game. It could be as short as a couple of minutes, that’s plenty to show all the goals, near misses and any controversy. A mate gave me a demo of a “3” phone a year or so ago, and that was the most compelling piece of it. He paid 50p, waited a couple of minutes and then we watched all the action in a 4-3 thriller. Sitting in the pub. The thing is, the iPod has become a mainstream device, it’s not just the province of geeks anymore. As such, it can learn from mainstream broadcasters like BSkyB who have come to dominate the UK Pay TV market almost entirely on the back of their sports coverage. They could even pick up on the subscription idea. I think some of the phone companies already do this. Charge me some kind of subscription and give me an RSS feed that allows me to download all the highlights of my team / country’s games.

PS This thinking came about as a direct result of Scotland winning 3-0 the other night. I’ve heard the goals were spectacular, but I haven’t seen them and once I’ve missed the televised highlights, I have almost no access to ever see them.