iTunes Chart-Toppers (a/o February 21st):
Data wonks have been hinting at this sort of statistic for years. And now, mobile music firm Music WithMe has published a report saying that 81 percent of personal iTunes collections never get played - not once. "The average iTunes library has 5,409 songs of which 4,195 have never been played," Music WithMe community manager Michelle Jones relayed. "Put another way: we listen to about 19% of the music we own."
You mean, 4,195 songs are downloaded and never listened to? Ever? Music WithMe offers an application solution that allows users to wirelessly sync their iTunes collections to Android devices. And the finding comes from an anonymous review of these collections - and their 0 play counts.
But data error could be skewing the number higher, including heavy 0 counts on rebuilt iTunes playlists. For example, when a collection from a portable drive is loaded onto a new computer and iTunes software installation, everything resets.
Either way, Music WithMe is using the data to make a point about cloud-based collections. Digital Music News made a big deal about the painstakingly-long upload process on Google Beta Music, but how many of those uploaded tracks will actually get listened to? "Why upload your entire library when you only listen to 19% of your music? Ever?" Jones asked.
/pr. Written while listening to Tiesto. Thanks to Music Ally for finding this.
Comments Closed
@Catherine_Ready Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Catherine Ready
Doesn't your mom listen to your music?
@tomauce Wednesday, May 25, 2011
tomauce
This is why music subscriptions trump clouds.
@katefrid Wednesday, May 25, 2011
katelyn erin
Thats depressing
@artsandcraftsmx Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Arts & Crafts México
La librería promedio de iTunes tiene 5,409 canciones, de las cuales 4,195 nunca se reproducen.
@kentsandvik Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Kent Sandvik
I know the feeling, 49+ days of constant music in my iTunes.
Lester Harrington Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Time to stop making such a differentiation between iTunes and subscriptions and cloud and whatever else. It's about getting the songs you want, when you want, so who's really going to care about the structure and pricing plan you wrap around all of that. Let's put on the lense of the consumer for once.
Let me put this another way. I'd bet more than 90% of cable channels are never watched once except maybe while flipping through. Never watched QVC or Golf Channel, but I can access it whenever you want it. Ownership - not ownership -- it's basically the same ratio. The only difference is I didn't download a bunch of videos on golf swings that I never watched.
Roger Bixley Wednesday, May 25, 2011
How does Music With me know that I haven't played the track? Maybe I played it on one of my other three computers? Maybe my playcounts didn't transfer over from one of the half dozen times I bought a new computer, or moved my collection over to a new external drive and had to reimport everything, or had to do a clean reinstall of my OS?
I'm sorry, I don't have any faith that this number is anywhere close to being correct.
Econ Thursday, May 26, 2011
Not to mention resetting the play count manually for any other reason.
balbers Wednesday, May 25, 2011
My ipod has 32,874 songs (over 94 days of continuous music), of which 19,973 have been played at least once (60.7%). Of those, 8140 played 2-10 times each. And ya, that percentage should actually be higher as this same music had been played on previous ipods, so that stat is just for my latest ipod (160gig classic) which I got less than a year ago.
I guess I don't fit so well in the bell curve.
I have a playlist called 'play me' where I dump in all the songs that haven't been played and set the ipod on shuffle and let 'er rip.
(Tiesto, huh? Dang, Paul, I held you in such high regard before that admission. Now I'm beginning to wonder…)
presnikoff Wednesday, May 25, 2011
hey @balbers, stop judging ;)_
GD Thursday, May 26, 2011
Does this come as news to anyone? My iTunes library is 90% music that I ripped from the CDs. We were forced to buy CDs that had 1-3 songs we actaully wanted. Of course I don't listen to the rest of the album. This article doesn't say anyting about the music library being 100% downloaded music. In addition, plenty of people download the whole album via the file sharing services. So bundling goes on even in the age of digital music and piracy.
@jbjensson Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Jóhannes B. Jensson
Interesting statistic for music heads Egill R. Erlendsson and Daddi Gudbergsson
@RobertEamonn Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Robert Eamonn
Guilty as charged
@drewleahy Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Drew Leahy
think of your parents record stacks / cd players at home...most of that collects dust and is rarely played!
@gkla Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Greg Katz
hey you don't need to be a parent to have a record stack
#kidsthesedays
@drewleahy Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Drew Leahy
heyaaa i said cd's too!
JP Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Apply this statistic to the importance (or perhaps non-importance) of piracy. If 5000 songs are downloaded but 80% have never been heard, then the RIAA's claim that piracy has cost them $5000 is clearly nonsensical, as 80% of our downloads certainly would not have been paid for if they were never even heard.
@HishamDahud Thursday, May 26, 2011
هشام
Yes the market is saturdated, but check this...
@worldaround Thursday, May 26, 2011
World Around Records
Heh. Wow.
@VCastaignet Thursday, May 26, 2011
Vincent Castaignet
Better understanding of the music listening experience...
@cjmoorehead Thursday, May 26, 2011
Chris Moorehead
I'm not surprised
@kleptones Thursday, May 26, 2011
Eric Kleptone
only? I doubt anyone listened to same percentage of their vinyl or tapes!
@showcasejase Thursday, May 26, 2011
Jason Richardson
Wow -- that's the Pareto principle in effect!
@HugeAu Thursday, May 26, 2011
Can this be right?
@WesBeez Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wes B aka Wes Beez
this is sad tho, i need my money
nonplusx Thursday, May 26, 2011
I have 21,802 songs in my work library, 13,241 of which have been played (60.7%). However, I work as QA for a digital music company so it is likely 10-15% of the total songs were downloaded during testing and not intended for personal use.
@coversong Thursday, May 26, 2011
Limelight
Wow.
@Sonicbids Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sonicbids
Crazy... Do you listen to all your tunes?
@timneumann Thursday, May 26, 2011
tim neumann
Veryyyy true. Excessive amounts of music...never played. I am guilty.
@npford Thursday, May 26, 2011
Nicholas Ford
...regarding "music obesity"
@drjonboyg Thursday, May 26, 2011
Jonathan Gitlin
You've probably never listened to $80 of the music in your library...
@see_hear Thursday, May 26, 2011
See Hear
So true!
@BrianDKarr Thursday, May 26, 2011
Brian Karr
I totally believe this.
David Dufresne Thursday, May 26, 2011
"Put another way: we listen to about 19% of the music we own.
I'll argue that efforts to monetize music (and "save" the music industry, and feed the artists...) should focus on that 19%. Stop focusing on monetizing the ownership and even the access to music, and focus on monetizing the actual enjoyment of music.
Econ Thursday, May 26, 2011
But for 50 years the industry has banked on selling items that people don't even want. People buy CD's and listen to the 1 or 2 tracks they wanted and ignore the rest... because singles weren't available.
Every person in the industry knows this but never once has it been uttered publicly by a label exec.
Now they are reaping what they have sown.
@DJEmeraude Thursday, May 26, 2011
DJ Emeraude
J'avoue...
@davidporter Thursday, May 26, 2011
David Porter
Interesting stat...
@uPlaya Thursday, May 26, 2011
uPlaya
Does this surprise you at all?
@ReyRobles_ Thursday, May 26, 2011
Rey Robles
Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?
Econ Thursday, May 26, 2011
I reset my play counts to zero annually. So they are looking at the wrong field. They should be looking at Last Played.
balbers Friday, May 27, 2011
They're also looking in the wrong place. "ITunes Library" suggests that they're looking at the music in my computer, not in my ipod. Any self-respecting music fan knows that you never keep music in your computer- once it's in iTunes, you straighten out the metadata/labeling/artwork, then dump it in your ipod as well as an external hard drive for safe keeping, and then delete it from your computer, thus freeing up that memory for doing other computer stuff.
I've got thousands of albums in my ipod, but keep only 2 or 3 at a time in my computer, and only very temporarily.
@Innerviews Thursday, May 26, 2011
Innerviews
I am loathe to admit how true this is.
@DJDangerVenture Friday, May 27, 2011
Michael Chouinard
is your iTunes library a statistic???
@siebert Friday, May 27, 2011
erik siebert
3 days/9 gigs never-played for me
@jpelphrey Friday, May 27, 2011
John Pelphre
Facinating
@destinationout Friday, May 27, 2011
Destination: Out
<<<*looking around furtively*>>>
@pOETiqbEETz Friday, May 27, 2011
Hank pOETiq Marshall
I agree, out of 28,000+ tracks in mine i can say less than 200 are in steady rotation
@babakva Friday, May 27, 2011
Babak
What happened to the long tail?
@SonicbidsBenson Friday, May 27, 2011
Michael Benson
Over 50% of Smartphone users prefer ownership to streaming....yet 81% of their music goes unplayed
@jlew8 Thursday, June 23, 2011
Jamie Lewis
seems like gorankem could change that
@DeeannDMathews Monday, June 27, 2011
Deeann Dova Mathews
Essentially, that means an awful lot of music gets lost in the shuffle.
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