more content on iTunes

The folks running the increasingly-misnamed iTunes Music Store have been busy bees. They've added a metric tonne of new content: The A-Team, South Park, Punk'd, The Munsters, and lots more. Viacom has added a lot of content from their properties, including MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central. They even released the a new episode of Drawn Together three days before it is aired on Comedy Central. This is a great marketing move: many of their shows appeal to teenagers, who have a lot of disposable income and are more likely to buy an iPod than those of us of a more advanced age (read: over 25).

I mentioned earlier that I like the idea of them releasing old SNL stuff to iTunes, but I'm not entirely happy about the implementation. First, I'm annoyed that each of the 'Best of ...' warrants their own entry in the 'TV Shows' listing. The UI girl in me wants there to be one SNL entry under 'TV Shows' then each 'Best of ...' can have a listing under 'Season'. Ditto for the parodies and sketches. My other issue with the SNL content is that it's rather expensive. I didn't realise that they would release an individual sketch (many of which are less than two minutes) at two bucks. That said, I don't seem to mind the idea of paying the two bucks per song video ('vingle', as iTunes is calling it). It's not as if the vingles are really that much longer than the SNL sketches.

Unsurprisingly, Disney has several short films available as well. There's seven different Pixar shorts and ten from Disney. The Disney shorts are early ones, the latest of which is from 1944. I have strong memories of Brave Little Tailor and Ferdinand the Bull, although I have no idea why. Again, this is a great move -- this plus the Nickelodeon content means that the iPod is even more attractive to kids. I'm not convinced that I would buy a six-year-old a video iPod, but then I don't have a six-year-old for whom to buy a video iPod, so this is all an academic exercise for me anyway.