June 12, 2006

How to Cope With Bad iTunes ROI

I'm impulsive when it comes to purchasing new music from iTunes, which no doubt makes Apple very happy. Inherent features of the iTunes Music Store, including other best selling songs by artists, and what others who purchased the song you're viewing also bought are very tempting tools to expand what may have been a $.99 or $9.99 purchase into something larger than that. And if you've had a chance to take a peek at my iTunes Library of late, you'll see I've already got thousands of songs to listen to - which if I sat down to consume in one gulp would take more than two and a half weeks of uninterrupted absorption. That means that some very good songs no doubt don't receive their fare share of attention, and it also suggests I don't need to purchase more songs, but instead listen to those I already have.

With that in mind, I looked into finding which songs I had purchased from the iTunes Music Store that hadn't been listened to more than say, 3 times, which would indicate a price of 33 cents per play or higher. I created a Smart Playlist consisting of songs in my "Purchased" playlist, and added another parameter that their "Play Count" was 3 or less. According to my real-time results, that consists of 53 items, and 6.4 hours total of entertainment to go - including one mix for 1 hour, 21 minutes.

So now, we're looking to fix my abhorrent spending habits, and we're becoming acclimated to those songs that so far have had a "Bad ROI".

Listening to ''Rush (Vinyl Version)'', by Purple Haze (Play Count: 1)