AOL getting ready for the windows iTunes store?

There have been rumors that AOL is interested in jumping on the iTunes music store bandwagon. This eWeek article makes it a little more likely that this might happen…

According to the article QuickTime is included in the new beta version of AOL 9.0 for Windows. This is news as older version used to rely on behind the scenes machinations based on Real Audio, for all streamed audio content:
“However, one notable change was the inclusion of Apple Computer’s QuickTime media player in addition to RealNetworks’ RealPlayer software. QuickTime’s AAC audio codec is being used to power AOL Radio, while AOL’s video offerings continue to be encoded in RealNetworks format. ”

Now, why would they do this? It could be that they are testing if QuickTime can be implemented on a large scale. If they really wanted to include the iTunes music store into AOL, then they would have to have QuickTime as the store is based on AAC/MP4, which only works in QuickTime so far.

Of course it does not mean that this has to happen, but if you think about who is behind AOL and that Warner is a part of this whole corporation you would think that they have a personal interest in selling music. The iTunes music store is the best model so far to sell music content on the web and they would be stupid to ignore it.

For Apple this is either way a good thing. AOL, still one of the biggest internet providers could be an awesome boost for the music selling ventures. If they can sell two million songs to OS X users in the US alone, think about what they could do if everybody with AOL could automatically use the store.

And even if they do not go with the iTunes music store. It is still a great step in making QuickTime a wider accepted standard on the Web than it already is.