Apple plots to revamp iTunes retail model with browser-based strategy (WSJ)

By R. Kinsey Lowe

Looking for ways to expand its reach in online media sales through its iTunes store, Apple is rethinking its overall strategy, according to the Wall Street Journal

The company may embrace a model whereby users buy and listen to music through a web browser, which would not require them to download Apple's iTunes software or any other files. Instead, users would acquire and "store" the music online, accessing it anywhere through any device as long as they are connected to the Internet.

Apple's consideration of different approaches follows its $85 million purchase of music streaming service La La Media Inc., which the Journal described as the "key vehicle" moving Apple's new approach.

Apple already surpassed Walmart as the nation's No. 1 music retailer with upward of $2 billion in sales.

Record company executive who have been advised of the new approach "are still digesting the changes," the Journal said, and "didn't want to discuss them publicly."

Those execs are privately hopeful about the prospect of expanding music purchasing options for consumers but wary of Apple gaining any more leverage.

Apple also sells movies and TV shows, but the Journal story did not address sales of other types of media over iTunes.

Additionally, it is widely expected that Apple next year will introduce a "tablet" computer that can also be used as an electronic reader for books, newspaper and other types of printed matter.