Commentary on Forrester's report on iTunes sales is all over the Internet. A much-linked article at The Register is titled "iTunes Sales Collapsing" and says iTunes "has experienced a collapse in sales revenues this year." Compare that to the actual title of the report, "Few iPod Owners Are Big iTunes Buyers." Compare the report title to titles of other articles written about the report: "Sales of iTunes hit low note: study," "Sales Plunge at iTunes Store, Study Says," "Digital Music Sales 'Collapsing'?" Those articles are based on The Register's article, not on the actual findings of the Forrester report.

One potentially troubling aspect of the report is data that shows since January the monthly revenue has fallen by 65 per cent. I have not read the report and am quoting The Register. What's the problem? Music sales are seasonal. Digital track sales peaked sharply in the last week of 2005, dropped over the next two weeks and then leveled off. It makes sense that January sales are not representative of a typical month's sales. Because of these predictable fluctuations, only year-over-year comparisons should be made. Comparing October to January ignores music's seasonality and gives a distorted view of sales trends.

Have digital sales collapsed? Hardly -- though the days of irrational exuberance are long gone. Week in and week out, between roughly 16 million and 20 million digital tracks are sold. A rate of 18 million per week results in 936 million per year. Sales were flat to down in the second and third quarters (compared with the first quarter) but track sales are trending upward over the last seven weeks. One has to assume that Apple, the dominant player in digital music, goes as the market goes.

[music jobs] Director of Content at Dada Entertainment; New York, NY.