iTunes

iTunes is the perfect product for the age of Bloat.

iTunes, like many software products available via the web, is free to use. Granted you have to buy the content - but the machine is free. Was your iPod free? No.

iTunes enables you to buy a track for 79p. You can't get a coffee or any drink for less than £1. 25. years ago, a single was £1. 25 years ago - that's 20 plus 5 years ago. Think about the relativity of that.

There's more. iTunes sells only electronic data to millions of people. It does not sell a single physical thing. No recycling, no waste, no packaging, no delivery (other than the electricity required to power up your computer and modem, and to charge your iPod).

Also, you can buy a track - any track - just one track. You do not have to buy a whole album. Cool! Typically albums contain junk that you don't want. In some cases it's all junk bar maybe one track (Madonna's Hard Candy would be the perfect example of that).

In our house, we have a strict system for putting CDs back in their case. CDs that go in the car in a wallet have a different system (their cases go in a stack at the back of a drawer). I just hated that "I want to listen to Madeleine Peyroux and ... it's actually in the Sex Pistols case but how the hell would I know that?" syndrome. It caused stress.

With iTunes, however, no problem! I don't know and neither do I care why my wife bought a Jimmy Buffett track but it's on her "cool after work music" playlist (AKA "do not bother" - sorry) while OK I admit I snuck a Girls Aloud song into my "workout" playlist the other day.

When I need a change of train of thought at work, I buy a track or two then mix them up. On the way home on the train, I remember that I have new tunes. I have not encumbered myself in any way. The way the music loads from computer to iPod is so fast, so slick, so easy, it's slimline, thrifty AND cool.

iTunes is the ZeitGeist. When I was at an interview at Google (my 8th of 9) they asked "What is the coolest product around?" to which I was of course meant to say "the iPhone". I did not. I garbled a crap response about iTunes. Wish I had blogged it first. It might have meant I moved to Zurich.

iTunes is also collaboration. It's "share my songs and mix them up". It's old records and something you just heard on the radio for fun like the Ting Tings, you probably don't want it forever but for 79p who cares?

Economics topic of today: How are Primark and iTunes similar and different? My answer tomorrow.