Here’s a nice example of a successful bit of business synergy. (Pardon the “stream of consciousness” style; this is exactly how it went.) I was sitting in Starbucks this morning, sipping my quad espresso macchiato, and listening to a podcast ((It was one of the excellent “Semi-Coherent Computing” pieces from The Register. Highly recommended – the conversation with Dave Patterson was incredibly good.)) with on my iPhone. During a moment of quiet, I heard the music that was playing in the store: “Needle and the Damage Done” by Neil Young. I pause the podcast, listen to the song. Hmm… which version is it – the original studio recording, that “Live at Massey Hall” disc I picked up a few months ago, or something else? I select iTunes on my iPhone, up comes the Starbucks icon, I touch it, and I can see from the “What’s Playing” box that it’s the Massey Hall recording that I already own.
OK, while I’m logged in to iTunes, what’s in the “Featured” category today? Oh yes, the new Led Zeppelin collection, “Mothership”. I browse the tracks, and see that I have all of them (from the “Led Zeppelin Remasters” box set) except for one: “When The Levee Breaks”. I’ve always liked that track, and post-Katrina it acquired a special significance, but for some reason I never got it on CD. Never mind: I touch the title, confirm “Buy”, re-enter my Apple password ((I had changed it recently.)), and download it. A few seconds and 99¢ later, I’m listening to Robert Plant’s plaintive harmonica over that menacing beat and Jimmy Page’s shimmering guitar. And half an hour later when I get home, I drop the iPhone into the cradle and the track is sync’d back into my regular iTunes library.
Apple has successfully redefined the process of buying music. Now we’re going to try to do the same for books. Should be fun.