January 26th is approaching fast. Australia Day is the day where we celebrate everything that makes this great country awesome. Apple and more specifically iTunes is having a sale to commemorate the occasion.

“We all know “our land abounds in nature’s gifts but this year it also abounds in music, movies, TV, audiobooks, apps and podcasts. At fair dinkum prices, iTunes has pulled together the best Australia homegrown entertainment to help you celebrate the national holiday and commemorate our local legends. Browse through and make your Australia Day one to remember.”

The reality is your not gunna save much, but hey, if its a couple of dollars that can go towards some drinks or meat for the BBQ, then that’s gotta be a winner.

[iTunes Link]

JB Hi-Fi have pulled the plug on CD Sales. Why ? They’re getting killed by online sales. Honestly is this at all surprising to people ? For years we’ve been gouged $30-$40 on albums that contain 1 to 2 great songs, 3 or 4 mediocre songs and a then completed with a bunch of fillers.

Singles are no better, at $5-$10 you might get a couple of B-side tracks, but usually they’re B-side for a reason.. because they’re crap !!

Online retailers (read: iTunes) give users the ability to choose tracks at their discretion, resulting at a much lower overall cost. Sure there’s the argument for that physical copy that might include lyrics, but ultimately that’s completely negated by the convenience of digital downloads.

Even desktop downloads are becoming outdated, direct-2-device downloads are clearly the future. The iPhone and many others are already offering this. So to buy your music, it’s as simple as pulling the device out of your pocket, searching for the song and clicking buy. 30 seconds later your listening to the music.

Today’s announcement by JB Hi-Fi will be the first of many by retailers to stop selling CD’s at retail. The only hope dedicated music stores like Sanity is to move online. Whilst they already have an online presence, they should be using this remaining time in retail to heavily promote their online site. They are of course in competition with the 10,000 pound gorilla – iTunes.

The other option for music retailers is to diversify they’re product range.. only problem is the natural extension is into other media like DVD. With Tivo and BlockBuster On Demand and again iTunes, already offering digital downloads that space is about to get even more competitive. Microsoft later this year will launch it’s 1080p movie streaming service via the Xbox 360, sure pricing is still to be announced, but good luck competing with that.

It truly is just a matter of time now before retail outlets like Target, K-mart, Big-W will switch out CD departments for other, more profitable merchandise. The question is how quickly these retailers will stop fighting the inevitable. Some will be pulled kicking and screaming into the new generation. The same goes for physical CD die hards, however if that’s you, you shouldn’t be too worried, there will still be CDs available at retail for many years to come, just be prepared to go searching for them.

There is of course still people selling records, this is exactly what will become of retail CD sales, small boutique, specialist stores that cater to a niche. Just don’t expect these to be in your local shopping centre, massive rent is the enemy of a dying business model.

Update
As discussed in the comments, JB Hi-Fi’s announcement is only related to the them ceasing the sales of singles. That said I doubt albums will be far behind.

More @ News.com.au

Unfortunately Australians continues to wait for the Zune to reach our shores. You can download and install the Zune client version 2.5.

However you’ll be able to do little more than use it as a WMP replacement. Attempts to sign-in to the Zune service results in the following screen. “Not available in your region”.

Paul Thurott has a great screenshot gallery of the update – WinSuperSite.

More @ CrunchGear

The update screen informs users they can “Rent and download your favorite movies with iTunes. Australians don’t get 2 excited, just looks like the info is generic and non country specific.

Australians are still yet to access to movies and TV shows through iTunes.

 
Click above image for larger version.

More @ TUAW

The song’s actually pretty catchy, it’s from singer/songwriter Kina Grannis from California. Could have done without the 2 token friends in the background. After uploading the video on December 23rd, and she’s already had 144,598 views on YouTube, I’m sure this number will continue to grow.

Found @ TechCrunch

More info @ Korina’s blog

Finally the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) have recognised that music today is delivered not only via physical CD’s, but also in the growing world of online music sales.

The Aria charts now include both physical sales and digital downloads. Interestingly the sales charts for the first week 27th Oct – 2nd Nov include 2 digital only release make the top 10. Timberland – Apologize and Alicia Keys – No One.

There’s also 10 digital only releases in the top 100, not a bad effort. This shows the change is long overdue as consumers are preferring the convenience of purchasing music online.

More @ ARIA

Press Release (PDF)