John Mayer sat there waiting — waiting — on his iTunes to load. It never did. And like the rest of us, he had to force quit. But instead of doing so and moving on, Mayer felt compelled to write a cheery missive to the folks at Apple. "Hi guys. John Mayer here. Nothing's worse than running to stale music on your iPod, am I right?" He goes on in such a manner. We know this because Mayer posted the below screenshot of his report to his blog, fully indicating his cleverness to those paying attention. At the end of his post, Mayer wonders how Apple engineers will react to his letter. Anyone care to inform us how it was greeted at One Infinite Loop?

Share music with other iTunes users [Lifehacker]

Apple has opened negotiations with the major record labels by offering only $20 per customer for a proposed unlimited plan at the iTunes music store, according to the Financial Times. Nokia is offering $80, but then cell-phone manufacturers have the price of phones subsidized by carriers who've gotten used to paying hundreds of dollars to acquire new customers. Apple has traditionally made its profits on the devices themselves, since iTunes margins are paltry, and are already slashing prices on units in order to meet sales forecasts. Labels are looking to get as much as $100 from iPod buyers and $8 a month from iPhone subscribers. Both sides are really fighting over how much of the profit from music they'll keep. Me, I'll stick with vinyl. (Illustration by Gizmodo)

When we first saw this graph of the recording history of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", we thought, a) god almighty everyone needs to stop covering "Hallelujah", and b) everyone really needs to stop graphing songs. It was all worth it though for this Kottke guest-blogger post, which perfectly encapsulates the blinkered triumphalism of the boutique bloggers. You see, a half-dozen random bloggers were all pretty sure that their posts on this graph launched Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" cover to number one on iTunes—until their one friend who watches TV pointed out that an American Idol contestant sang it last week. [Kottke]

Warner Music has signed a deal with 7digital.com to sell its entire catalog DRM-free in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Spain and France. What's 7digital, you ask? An online music store that's not Apple's iTunes, which seems to be Warner's only requirement in a partner these days. [Crave]

Apple's iTunes movie rental store has only 399 titles available for download. That's 601 fewer than CEO Steve Jobs promised at Macworld in January. Jobs has always maintained that Apple's market share isn't what matters — it's the quality of its products. Check out the top 12 iTunes movie rentals below — a list which includes cinematic thrills like No Reservations and Stardust — and see if that applies here.

NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker told a hall full of future Harvard MBAs yesterday that Steve Jobs booted NBC television from the iTunes store last summer because Zucker merely asked to experiment with show pricing. In fact, Zucker went on, NBC Universal films are now a part of the iTunes movie store only because Jobs bowed to NBC's demand for variable pricing. It's a convenient narrative, but not what actually happened.

Apple is now the second largest music retailer, beating Best Buy, in the United States. NPD Group, the market-research firm which tracks sales, estimates 12 single-song downloads as an album. Why don't they just count revenues? That would be easier. [BusinessWeek]

So much for a "special event".Linkin Park played a short set at the SoHo Apple store last night. The show was taped for an exclusive iTunes release next month. It's possible that Apple bumped them from an actual secret event because of the leak, but unlikely. [Billboard]

BBC and Apple have partnered up to sell BBC programming through the UK iTunes store. [Reuters]

What's the value of the spoken word? $300 million, according to Amazon.com, which just purchased the leading digital audiobook reseller, Audible.com. The amount is a premium of more than 20 percent on yesterday's closing price. The purchase of Audible, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary, shows that Amazon is serious about digital content. Amazon has sold Audible's audio downloads since May 2000, and the purchase is a natural fit as Amazon offers more content via digital delivery. But what does it mean for the consumer?

"We've said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple," NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said in the Financial Times this morning. Of course you have, Jeff. Except for maybe that time last fall when you told an audience at Syracuse University that "Apple has destroyed the music business ... If we don't take control on the video side, they'll do the same [there]." What does Zucker's pirouette mean?

Time Warner Cable's new billing scheme, a test to charge users by bandwidth consumption, could crush Steve Jobs's hopes and dreams for Apple TV.

Stock traders weren't blown away by Steve Jobs's Macworld announcements, sending Apple shares down 5 percent. Rivals faired even worse, however. From the numbers, they expect Apple's movie-rental service with support from all of the major studios to pummel brick-and-mortar competitor Blockbuster, and to a lesser extent Netflix. Blockbuster is trading down more than 15 percent in after hours while Netflix is down 3 percent.

Just confirmed at Macworld: all six major studios are onboard for iTunes movie rentals. That's Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal.Variety thought Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. were unlikely to sign on for "various competitive reasons." Maybe there's hope for the flailing Apple TV yet. Why? It's all you need to access the films. No computer required. (Photo by Boereck)

Is Apple CEO Steve Jobs prepared to announce iTunes movie rentals tomorrow? Netflix is sure acting like it. Over the weekend, it announced that it will remove restrictions on how many movies its customers can stream in a month.

Jonathan Todd, the commission's antitrust spokesman, states:

Steve Jobs has quieted one long-running concern of unhappy Apple shareholders by naming Avon CEO Andrea Jung to the male-dominated board of the Cupertino-based computer maker. Jung will be the board's first female member in nearly 11 years. The addition likely has nothing to do with appeasing feminists, however, and everything to do with Jung's business connections. She also serves on the board of GE, the parent of NBC Universal. Apple's media strategy has been hindered by a feud between NBC's Jeff Zucker and Jobs over selling TV shows online. Jung will likely have to recuse herself from any direct dealings. But as a behind-the-scenes peacemaker? She's perfectly made up. (Photo by Avon)

Justin Timberlake, released by Sony's Jive label, will soon be available in MP3. This big news we found buried in a report that Sony BMG, the last of the four major record labels to hold onto copy-protection software, is finally going to embrace the MP3 format. The inevitable decision has generated a lot of drivel from mainstream publications about how industry titans are dropping DRM, whatever that is, and banding together to overthrow Apple's stringent 99-cents pricing regime. Amazon.com, the copy-protection-free alternative they're embracing, is more flexible on the cost of individual tracks.

The iTunes effect — or file-sharing, if you prefer — was in full force this holiday season. Album sales plunged 18 percent compared with pre-Christmas week sales in 2006. [Variety]