a nation of singles

No, not a plug for match.com, more a music related analogy. In the US 119 M albums were downloaded this year online, as compared to 288 M singles. So no matter how much thought an artist puts into arranging an album as an experience, people prefer to do the re-arranging themselves. But perhaps there is something more.

Perhaps the story is more that people prefer whatever they buy to accomplish one goal very well and very simply. A single does that nicely (though admittedly so could a concept album). I've been looking for a new printer and I am amazed that there aren't that many good simple inkjet printers - to get a good one i have to buy a "bundle" of a scanner/copier to. I could argue a a Wii does one thing well, a PS3 tries to do several things and not succeed. The exception seems to be the iPhone, though I am guessing problems will/have emerge with one function.

Some of the best experiences we have these days seem to include modularity as a key component - you get in as deep (or as shallow) as you want to. The challenge is to now affect the supply chain in a way that consumers can control those bundles as much or as little as they want. Similarly, retailers need to ask themselves how they can provide different kinds of shops with different levels of shopping experience.