Well ho-hum. News is spreading around the blogosphere that iTunes will surpass RealPlayer in terms of unique users later in 2007. That’s no surprise.

RealPlayer is one of the most hated applications on the Internet. Ever. Many people still believe it’s some sort of spyware.

According to a web market firm (Ok, go here for the link), iTunes grew by 47.5 % last year, while RealPlayer grew only 9.1%, QuickTime by 8.7%, and Windows Media Player grew by just 2%. The company used data from Nielsen/Netratings and extrapolated this analysis.

Unfortunately, comparing iTunes to Real or Windows Media isn’t a good comparison. iTunes is mostly a media player and isn’t really used for streaming audio or video. Sure, iTunes can tune into podcasts and some Internet radio stations, but it’s not made for that.

Windows Media and RealPlayer both are streaming media players. For live and on-demand audio and video. And yes, they also work as jukeboxes or media players.

Nevertheless, it’s somewhat interesting to note Real’s downfall.

Popularity: 24% [?]