I share your disappointment. Apple did, after all, spearhead the webcasting technology.

But on the other hand, I do find it interesting the their competition covered the event in a webcast. Does Microsoft have something similar in the works? Are they going to let Apple figure out the problems first and then launch a system based on what people learned from Apple's potential failures? Who knows.

I fear that selling songs individually may lead to stifled creativity from artists. Songs that don't sell will be dropped and artists will strive to make 'hit' songs that sell. I've often bought a CD and not liked most of the tunes, but on later listens found that I liked alot of the album, even though many of the tunes weren't what you'd call hits.

For the short term, assuming I had a system that could use this service (which I don't), I'd use the new music service to get tunes from Pop artists. These are artists that typically only make good hits and the rest is fluff. The more talented artists create an album wide experience, one which I'd go buy the CD for. But I'd DL the hit or two off say Christina Aguilera's album or perhaps Pink, etc. But Fleetwood Mac's new album? I'll probably grab the full CD in the store or from Amazon.com.

Perhaps Apple should partner with Amazon for selling CDs? Or maybe they have, I don't know, I can't launch the service because I'm a deprived Mac user... Woe is me...

Now accepting donations to the MNB needs OSX fund. PayPal NOT accepted! ;-)