Mac users more than three times as likely to buy music as PC users

Whaaaa!!!

While the extrapolations of some of the data may be a bit out there, the real message is the MAC users are less likely to illegally download than PC users, which makes the howling about the iTunes store by the labels even more ridiculous- and the conclusions of the some the respondents equally so. Maybe Mac customers have more money than the average PC customer, maybe they are older and thus more law abiding, maybe they just like the ease of the iTunes store. Whatever the cause, if this data is whole and real, this is good news for the music industry, which has yet to come up with a new model in the face of major technologic change.

cherry picking

Think you can cherrypick your numbers a little more so that reality can be skewed by your "facts"?

Creativity has nothing to do with the purchase of music or other media. Period.

None of what you wrote has anything to do with anything other than to *maybe* point out that the people who buy expensive Macs don't let their kids use them because something you never took into consideration is the age demographic for the users of each platform and the age demographic for those who purchase music. Bet you'll find THOSE numbers match your assertion about piracy.

Regardless, you're obviously biased and have little interest in truth so you'll likely dismiss all these comments as meaningless.

Is this really all that meaningful?

I really question how meaningful these statistics really are. Percentage based comparisons don't seem to have a huge amount of value when one of the groups is only 9% of the total population.

Consider the point made that 50% of Mac users by music online while 16% of PC users do. Out of every 100 users, there are 9 Mac users and 91 PC users. Out of those 100 users, you would then have an average of 4.5 Mac users and 14.6 PC users that buy music online. Which is really the bigger market for online music sales?

I suppose that this does provide some statistical evidence for the already widely recognized idea that Mac users tend to be pretty media-centric. That is hardly a surprise, though, as Apple has long promoted media manipulation as a key selling point for their systems. Apple also is currently the largest player in the MP3 player and online music business, so it certainly is no surprise that those products are heavily promoted to Mac owners as well.

What isn't really explained in this article is what the author things the music industry should be doing with this information. Is the author suggesting that the music industry should try to help Apple grow its market share on the idea that this might increase the size of their potential market? What evidence is there that an increased market share for the Mac wouldn't just broaden the interests of their user base?

Alternately, is the author suggesting that the music industry should just focus their marketing efforts towards Mac users. If so, does it really make any sense to focus marketing efforts on the customers they already appear to have?