Depeche Mode Bundle Ticket Access With iTunes Downloads

This week Depeche Mode announced a first, which was that people who download their forthcoming album from iTunes in the USA will also get a password that entitles them to get advanced priority booking for the U.S. tour. It's an interesting idea, that encourages loyal fans to take the digital route (the album additionally has a 'bonus' iTunes only track) thus saving physical distribution costs, and is an example of the industry trying to use a carrot to encourage legal downloads rather than the usual stick to discourage the illegal variety.

I'm not 100% convinced that the band will be impressed with BBC News illustrating the story with a picture of them appearing on Top Of The Pops in 1981 however :-)

This story hasn't been my only online interest in Depeche Mode this week - I'll be in Milan next year when they are touring, and so on Monday I spent some time fruitlessly trying to book tickets for the show. What I found interesting about it was that when I could get onto the overloaded ticketone.it servers the interaction pattern of purchasing something online is so well established that it didn't matter that I don't speak Italian. I could still search for the tickets I wanted, understand the pricing structure, follow where to click to start booking them, and understand when the red cross and greyed out icons meant that I had failed in my quest, even if I didn't understand exactly what 'Posti esauriti' meant.