The Real Power of iTMS

The Rhapsody music service today announced that it will begin selling unprotected music tracks in mp3 format for 99 cents, while still retaining the subscription model that they've operated for several years. The experts have been talking about this development and its effect on Apple's iTunes Music Store operation--will it take away business from Apple, is Apple vulnerable, where will the music sales business go in the future? I think that iTMS is often mistaken for a music download service only, instead of what it really is--a large music community. Anyone can throw up some music on a server, accept payments and allow downloads. That's pretty easy to do. But Apple has created an entire world of music where downloads are just one small part of the process of discovering and enjoying music. You can find playlists put together by others (including celebs), videos, cover art, discussions and much more. It all creates a reason to visit--and re-visit--the iTMS, which is what other music services lack. And, I should say, iTMS does all this with an elegant interface that's, in turn, just one part of Apple's digital lifestyle software package (iPhone, iMovie, etc.). So these semi-technical or business announcements about music aren't really as important as they seem, and certainly are competition for Apple.