Omar L. Gallaga writes about technology culture for the Austin American-Statesman. He's worked for more than nine years at the Austin American-Statesman and edited Technopolis, the newspaper's personal tech section, and ¡ahora sí!, Austin's Spanish-language newspaper. He's been a writer and performer with Austin's award-winning Latino Comedy Project and is a contributing writer for Television Without Pity, MSNBC.com's books section and The Almost Late Show with Bobby Bones. He writes a comic strip, "Space Monkeys!" with his brother, Pablo, and lives in New Braunfels with his wife and three technologically savvy cats.
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The entry titled "iTunes becomes top U.S. music retailer."
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2008 > April > 03 > Entry
By Omar Gallaga
| Thursday, April 3, 2008, 02:59 PM
It’s official.
Apple has announced (based on NPD sales numbers) that it has surpassed Wal-Mart as the top U.S. music retailer. The company’s iTunes service has sold more than 4 billion songs and has 50 million users, the company said.
And oh yeah, MySpace has just launched its own music service with major labels which will offer free as well as pay-to-download music. Good luck catching up!
Speaking of music services, Austin’s curious Slacker Portable Music player gets the first in a series of write-ups from Engadget. Anyone who’s curious about the device’s capabilities and quality of the Slacker will want to check out these articles.
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By mystery..
April 4, 2008 2:54 PM | Link to this
http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/14208532.rss
We're watching you...
By Jim Hillhouse
April 4, 2008 2:21 PM | Link to this
I think the relationship with MySpace is try number...what? something like 4 or 5 for the record industry. You're very right; a big pilling helping of luck is what the record companies need when iTunes is selling 19 million songs per 30 days.
As for Slacker, it faces an even harder time in competing with the iPod "Whatever". After reading the Engadget articles, I think the name "Slacker" is apt--though bigger than an iPod Classic because of the 4" screen, it doesn't play video. Why? Because it's a radio that plays MP3's as an "after thought". Huh? Anyway, as the Microsoft Surface is now termed a "big-a*s table", Slacker could be likewise called a "Big A*s Radio".
With the Touch development launch on March 6th, the iPhone/iPod competition with squash this shortly. I mean, if you're going to compete with Apple, ya gotta try, or at least look like you're trying to try.