iPod Wins Hands Down

The
early consensus on Apple’s new mini-iPods seems to be that there
is not enough bang for the buck: Why pay $250 for 4 Gigs when $50 more
will get you 15 Gigs? Sure, the size is smaller, but in a device like
this
one reaches a point where smaller is no longer more practical, but
less
– harder to operate and manipulate, easier to lose or sit on.

The original iPods, however, are dominating the market.  We don’t
know if this is the case in other local markets, but in Boston Apple
has bought the advertising rights to entire subway stations, so that
major nexi in the public transportation system that last year had 40
or 50 different companies advertising on big posters and panels, along
the walls and on partitions between the tracks, today have only one.
  Advertising only one product.  The iPod. Awesome advertising
strategy.

An interesting article in tomorrow’s New York Times reviews the proliferation
of portable audio choices….

At the big DataVision Computer Video store in Midtown Manhattan, personal
digital audio players were one of the holiday season’s best sellers,
said John A. Griffin, the store’s sales manager, and iPods were clearly
the players of choice.

"
For every one of the other players we sold people bought 70 to 80 iPods," Mr.
Griffin said one day recently as shoppers ogled a store display of
more than 50 different models of players ranging in size from cigarette
lighters
to small jewelry boxes.

from the New York Times