Improving the ITMS

I really like the iTunes Music Store. Since its creation I have bought hundreds of songs and several videos and downloaded many, many podcasts. And in the process of all this I have begun to hit the limits of what the store has to offer. Don’t misunderstand me, I think the ITMS is a very nice system for finding and purchasing media; however, I feel it could be done better. In my opinion its main failings are the ways in which it fails both to find specific content and to introduce users to other media they might also wish to purchase, specifically in the area of podcast. For my money the best online store is, without a doubt, Amazon. Let me give you an example in which I compare Amazon and the ITMS to better illustrate my point.

I happen to be quite a fan of well-written fantasy, everything from classics by H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith to newer works by the likes of Stephen Donaldson or Robin Hobb. However, while I do enjoy unique fantasy, the more common “Sword & Sorcery” style doesn’t appeal to me. Thankfully, regardless of how popular it is, I know that I will have little trouble finding new authors that I will enjoy on Amazon. I feel confident of this because Amazon has an excellent system of connecting customers to products they will likely enjoy. Features like a user controlled rating system, tags, user comments, a “similar items” category, and a “Customers who bought this item also bought…” all combine to make it very easy for one to find new items. And while the ITMS has some of these features, they don’t really connect together in the same way they do on Amazon.

Imagine for a moment if you had never before heard a song. Music was completely unknown to you. And then one day someone took you to a large music store (like FYE, Tower Records, etc.) and told you to find some music that you liked. What would you do? Listen to each album in its entirety? That is clearly not going to work as you would probably die of old age before you listened to everything. Additionally, I am willing to bet that you wouldn’t need to listen to 15 polka records before realizing that you didn’t particularly care for the genre. What would more than likely happen is that you would head over to the best sellers rack for each genre and listen to a few songs from each of the top 3 picks. That way you could get a feel for whether or not you preferred rap over country or blues over punk. And while this strategy might help you find the broad spectrum of music you enjoy, it really doesn’t work too well for specifically finding the artists you would like best. Few people would have the time to sample enough music to make an informed opinion. Most would turn to something like the radio (where the DJs pick what you get to hear) or the best sellers list to choose. For more on how we choose things like music check out this very interesting study on how songs become popular. Probably the most effective way to find music you like is to find friends who have similar taste and ask them what they like.

I bring this example up to demonstrate how we choose media. But things like movies, TV shows, and music aren’t that hard to find. There are plenty of critics who review movies so you don’t have to. Everyone watches TV and so it isn’t hard to ask a friend for a recommendation. And all you have to do is turn the dial on your radio to find some music you like. But how do you find a podcast you like? Well, your main source of reference would be a site (and there are several) that reviews podcasts. Or, you could go to the podcast directory on the iTMS and start searching. And that is where my main problem lies.

It is just too hard to find quality podcasts. If you look around the podcast directory you will find the top 20 podcasts, the podcasts from the names everyone already knows (ESPN, BBC, CNN), and the currently “featured” podcasts. And if you don’t like any of those, good luck sorting through the thousands of others that didn’t make it to the main page. Here is an example I was faced with recently: I wanted to find a podcast on programming. For this particular search I decided to be fairly broad just to see what was out there. I’ll take anything, how to program, history of programming, new concepts in programming, anything. I don’t even care what language it’s in. How do I go about finding something worthwhile?

Well, I look on the main podcast directory and don’t see anything that fits my criteria, so it’s time to go searching. Where do I look? My two best options seem to be either Science & Medicine or Technology. If I wanted a more abstract approach to programming then I might look in the science section, but since I’m after the most hits, I decide to search in Technology instead. Great, I click that link and find myself at the tech main page. I see the top 25 podcasts and some featured podcasts, none of which seem to deal directly with programming. There seems to be plenty of tech news, reviews, humor, Apple or Adobe related, but nothing on programming. Where do I look from here? I could click the “See All” link but that just shows me all 100 podcasts, which is hardly helpful. Especially since each one only barely has a sentence explaining what it is. I suppose I could click on each one, read its bio, and listen to a sample of it, but I don’t feel like wasting that much time. Where do I go from here? Maybe I should just search for the word programming and see where that takes me?

I do an advanced search for “Programming” in the category of “Technology” with results that are only in “English.” That nets me 42 possibilities. Of those 42 only a few look promising. Rubyology, Software Engineering Radio, The Command Line Podcast, Introduction to Design and Programming, CodePath, Talking Code, and the Website Design Blog are remote possibilities. Seven out of 42 might be interesting. I click on the most promising one, Software Engineering Radio, only to find a short description and one review. Maybe I will listen to one or two episodes to see if I like it, but if it turns out not to be what I want, I’m back to checking out the other six possibilities. I could look into some of the suggestions from the “Listeners also subscribed to…” section but I fear I would once again find myself wading through dozens of dull podcasts looking for a gem. At some point I have to ask myself if I want to spend another three hours finding a decent podcast or if I just want to download something from the BBC and be done with it.

After all, this hunting and searching isn’t impossible, just time consuming. And that is fine if I have an afternoon to burn and nothing to do. But if I only have 10 minutes to find something I like, I’m out of luck. It’s either pick something mainstream or take a chance listening to some crap I don’t care about. There has got to be a better way. If Amazon can do it then so can Apple. My only question is when will it happen?