Steve Jobs tomorrow may announce that the length of music samples on iTunes may increase from 30 second soundbites to 1 minute samples. This would be a welcome change given that it's sometime not possible to really figure out if a song is worth purchasing solely based off of a random 30-second clip
Apple’s special media event is just a day away and the rumors keep on rolling in. While a refreshed iPod lineup is all but a sure thing – cameras for the iPod Touch and a new form factor for the Nano – the theme of tomorrows event, in a broader sense, is music. That said, when Steve Jobs takes the stage tomorrow, he’ll be talking about a lot more than just new hardware.
To wit, CNET reported yesterday that Jobs tomorrow may announce that the length of music samples on iTunes may increase from 30 second soundbites to 1 minute samples. This would be a welcome change given that it’s sometime not possible to really figure out if a song is worth purchasing solely based off of a random 30-second clip. A 1-minute sample, however, would presumably give users a chance to check out a main verse and part of the chorus, and would more accurately reflect what the entire song sounds like.
Currently, iTunes offers 30-second snippets of songs, a feature designed to give users a taste of the music to help them decide whether they like it enough to buy. Some users have long complained that half a minute isn’t enough time to really hear a song.
Numerous other digital-music services offer much more time, including Pandora and Google’s YouTube. Pandora has become a leader in digital radio, and while a user can’t pick and choose which songs they want to listen to, they do get to hear full-length songs free of charge. By contrast, YouTube users do choose which full-length songs they want to hear by picking whatever music video they want, but these songs can’t be legally captured or transferred to digital-music players.
