WinMX the Most Popular Music Download Service?

**dubstylee** · June 7th, 2005, 03:46 PM

Perhaps this story should be titled "Is NPD and the collective news media smoking crack?"

They are claiming that WinMX is the most popular source for downloading music on the internet, followed closely by iTunes. Their metric for this is that "2.1 million households" downloaded at least one song off WinMX. That's funny, I can log on to eDonkey RIGHT NOW and see more than 4 million users online at this very second. Where does the donkey appear in NPD's paper? It doesn't. Their top 5 is rounded out by Limewire, KaZaA, and BearShare (no effort to combine the 2 gnutella clients). But I'm sure the mighty NPD is right, all those millions of users are probably just chatting or something, not downloading music. Seriously, do they just make this stuff up? Or ask their kids? Or what?

Why would they make such an audacious claim in the face of staggering evidence to the contrary? The answer is old school media. You see, before technology made our lives infinitely easier, someone came up with the idea of a "representative sample." Basically, the theory is that it is impossible to measure the entire population accurately so let's just take a small sample of the people out there, measure every little detail of what they do, then extrapolate that data and apply it to the general population.Gee, that was a great idea - in 1965. Quote from the NPD MusicWatch Digital: "NPD MusicWatch Digital collects information continuously from the PCs of 40,000 members of NPD's online consumer panel, balanced demographically to represent the online population." Wow 40,000? Gosh that must have taken you forever. Great job NPD, great investigative reporting there.

Ever wonder why the **AA looks so clueless when giving their soundbytes to the press? "Music industry executives, entertainment technology companies and retailers use NPD MusicWatch Digital information to answer their most important questions about digital music acquisition and use." Oh, that explains it.

Shame on the mainstream media for buying this load. Shame on them for not looking at real statistics, just taking the easy way out and buying a "marketing demographic report" from NPD and reporting it as news. This is not reporting people, this is reprinting information that someone has handed you and said, "Oh yeah that's probably true."

Read the complete article

**boogiedan** · June 7th, 2005, 03:49 PM

wher's Ares, Soulseek, sharaza etc................

Wipeout · June 7th, 2005, 03:52 PM

WinMX was good but it's starting to get more and more fake files.

**dubstylee** · June 7th, 2005, 03:59 PM

I actually heard about this NPD report on May 27th, when an editor from forbes.com emailed me asking why WinMX was the most popular music downloading service. I blogged about it then, but no one listens to me.

:devil2

**The Hunter** · June 7th, 2005, 04:02 PM

This is either sad, funny, or both. I was as close to being a WinMX fanboy as you could get, but when the ques reached a staggering length, even I had to bail out.

**bobhss** · June 7th, 2005, 04:13 PM

Maybe it's better that eDonkey, Ares, Soulseek, etc don't show up. Less of a blip on anyone's radar?

**ducttapeBigSexy** · June 7th, 2005, 04:15 PM

In statistics, you should always look at what you come up with, and see if it's reasonable. Apparently the people at NPD slept through that class...

**crackerjacker** · June 7th, 2005, 05:14 PM

most popular for music =
hmm
dogster

**notbob** · June 7th, 2005, 05:19 PM

well, if they are looking at the general public, why not?

the general public are years behind us

maybe it's another sad comment on how technologically illiterate John Q. Public is

**The Hunter** · June 7th, 2005, 05:37 PM

I still cant believe it, as most of the rubes I come in contact with are using Kazaa. One guy recently told me that he was having problems with downloading songs on Kazaa, as most of them wouldnt play. All this suffering, and he was using phonelines.

**MrGonzo** · June 7th, 2005, 05:40 PM

I really dont know why Ares isn't up there, its fucking awsome! Ive never have a problem finding what I want there!

**The Hunter** · June 7th, 2005, 05:49 PM

Shsssh, now you know you cant find anything on Ares.

**crackerjacker** · June 7th, 2005, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by The Hunter

Shsssh, now you know you cant find anything on Ares.

that is why arent u glad your using our private p2p network hunter :)
shhh i should of not said that

imok*
cheerz

**dubstylee** · June 7th, 2005, 10:57 PM

Update:

NPD Press Release

p2pnet article - with good quotes from Limewire COO Greg Bildson

"I mean we get 6,000,000 or more downloads a month so we’ve got to assume that we’re in more than 1.7 million households. I don’t think iTunes is getting six million downloads a month on the software itself.”