Apple counting down to one billion iTunes

[AppleInsider]

Apple on Tuesday announced the iTunes Music Store Billion Songs Countdown, a thank you offering to its music fans in 21 countries around the globe that have combined to purchase nearly one billion songs from the iTunes Music Store.

As the company marks its way to the one billion, the iTunes shopper who download every 100,000th song will receive a prize package featuring a black 4GB iPod nano and a $100 iTunes Music Card, the company said.

One lucky grand-prize winner who downloads the billionth song from the iTunes Music Store will receive a 20-inch iMac, ten 60GB iPods (5 white/5 black), and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card to jumpstart their digital music collection.

In addition, Apple will also create a full-ride scholarship in the name of the grand-prize winner to a world-renowned music school.

"Just think: You could help launch the careers of an entire generation of musicians," Apple wrote on its Web site. An official set of contets rules was also published.

Apple kicked-off a similar promotion last July in anticipation of the 500 millionth song sold through the iTunes service. The grand-prize winner of that promotion was awarded 10 iPods of their choice to share with family and friends, an iTunes gift card for 10,000 songs and an all-expenses paid trip for four to see Coldplay on their world tour.?
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ] (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1516)

[ecking]

Damn, actual incentive to buy a song, how many more days will it take until it's close enough to a billion that it'd be worth it for me to try.

[Eduardo]

Oh when, oh when will Radiohead have their songs on iTunes?
:(

{I have almost everything on CD and/or Vinyl but it would be nice for the rest of the population to have the option of 'discovering' Radiohead).

[CosmoNut]

I feel the same way about Dave Matthews Band. They have ONE album on there. Whoopdeedoo.

[Louzer]

Originally posted by Eduardo
Oh when, oh when will Radiohead have their songs on iTunes?
:(

{I have almost everything on CD and/or Vinyl but it would be nice for the rest of the population to have the option of 'discovering' Radiohead).

Bah! Those who would care already know about them. And those that don't, what makes you think they'd be able to find them in order to 'discover' them. (that's the whole problem with the theory that the store makes it easy to discover new music. With all the music that's there, you have to spend a lot of time swilling around just to find a new artist you might like, which, for most people, probably ain't worth the effort).

[dixonmanor]

And I tihnk everyone already knows about the Dave Mattews Band.

[SpamSandwich]

A really great promotion. They should play up the GarageBand aspect of the prize winnings also (for the potential musician in all of us).

[BRussell]

a $10,000 iTunes Music Card to jumpstart their digital music collection I'd say that $10,000 worth of music is more than just a "jumpstart."

[iShawn]

Why even put a counter? iTunes shows 952,560,180 and doing nothing (even on refresh) while Safari tells me (through iTunes + iPod page) 952,841,000 and constantly growing...

I understand real-time tracking of it is almost impossible... but....

[Elixir]

sometimes i wonder if people actually win this shit.




i'd love some radiohead on itunes

i'm a fan of them but not of every song.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by BRussell
I'd say that $10,000 worth of music is more than just a "jumpstart."
I'd say it's a whole new electrical system. Battery and all.

[melgross]

Originally posted by Elixir
sometimes i wonder if people actually win this shit.




i'd love some radiohead on itunes

i'm a fan of them but not of every song.

They would have to, wouldn't they?

It's not exactly obscure.

[DCQ]

Originally posted by AppleInsider
In addition, Apple will also create a full-ride scholarship in the name of the grand-prize winner to a world-renowned music school

I wonder if you could take the scholarship yourself. I'd love to take a few years off and just study music at a world-renowned music school...

Probably not...

[melgross]

Originally posted by DCQ
I wonder if you could take the scholarship yourself. I'd love to take a few years off and just study music at a world-renowned music school...

Probably not...

It's not a scholarship.

It's a scholarship PROGRAM.

The school whould have to decide to whom it would be given each year.

[iShawn]

Originally posted by melgross
It's not a scholarship.

It's a scholarship PROGRAM.

The school whould have to decide to whom it would be given each year.

Mmmm. Probably Julliard. But other places would be nice, maybe the winner gets to pick!

[melgross]

Originally posted by iShawn
Mmmm. Probably Julliard. But other places would be nice, maybe the winner gets to pick!

I've been thinking that the winner might be allowed to pick.

I would pick Juliard. That's right across the street from her HS, the LaGuardia HS of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

[CosmoNut]

Remember, the school would have to accept the student first.

[melgross]

Originally posted by CosmoNut
Remember, the school would have to accept the student first.

What this sounds like it this:

The school gets the scholorship program, and treats it like any other scholorship program. Either it is granted to those who apply and meet the requirements, or, it is offered to those who meet the requirements.

The requirements are usually both financial, as well as artistic.

This year, for example, One senior from my daughters school whose father I know, was offered a full scholarship to Julliard. He is a concert pianist. He won several competitions, and is in the lower middle income bracket.

[crees!]

I like how the countdown on the frontpage is different from on the iTunes page. Looks like it has a slower refresh rate with all that animation going on. I wonder if it polls the server on every update or just when the page 1st loads?

[sunilraman]

heh. just finished explaining the australian iTunes music store to my 50-something year old aunt :embarrass ...phew. she was looking for michael buble. she went to tower records and couldn't find the cd with the songs she wanted, and of the cd she might have bought, apparently it only came bundled with a dvd...

so i said, iTMS! she said: what's that?? anyway, managed to get a nice custom playlist of the tracks she liked, which actually came from 3 different albums. you could buy each track individually, there was no album-only.

the deal-breaker was the payment part. she does not do any buying online with credit card or paypal ("what with hacking, phishing, scams, spam, viruses"). so she'll continue to hunt at cd shops.

so, a little anecdote. and two major barriers for apple's next billion song milestone. 1. awareness of the iTMS and technical know how for those in the 40-70 year old range :err: and 2. more confidence and comfort in purchasing online.

[CosmoNut]

Originally posted by sunilraman
she does not do any buying online with credit card or paypal ("what with hacking, phishing, scams, spam, viruses").

"I'm telling you Agnes, buying online just isn't safe. Just too much risk of my credit card number being stolen."
"Ma'am, how was your meal?"
"Oh, excellent, here's my credit card!"
"I'll be right back with your receipt."
"Anyway, Agnes, you don't want your credit card info to fall into the wrong hands!"

:rolleyes:

[sunilraman]

Totally. This evening my mum left her credit card with the restaurant at the golf club for over an hour (for the drinks/food tab for a few guests). (No, we're not that rich or anything). The golf club membership card is also a credit card. So everytime you got to show your membership card you're also flashing all your credit card details :D :err: WTF, some may say.

[BRussell]

It looks like they're creeping up on a billion. It seems to be going at about a million per day. It's at 992 million as I type this, so it'll probably be a week or less. That was quick.

[icibaqu]

well dude, you have to just buy those songs for your aunt with your own credit card and burn her a CD. she'll love it (and you...awwwww)

[melgross]

Originally posted by BRussell
It looks like they're creeping up on a billion. It seems to be going at about a million per day. It's at 992 million as I type this, so it'll probably be a week or less. That was quick.

It's about 3 million a day. Last night it was 989 million.

[sunilraman]

Originally posted by icibaqu
well dude, you have to just buy those songs for your aunt with your own credit card and burn her a CD. she'll love it (and you...awwwww)

heh. let's just say the bitTorrent fairy came and helped us out :p :D

[sunilraman]

994 million :smokey:

[melgross]

Originally posted by sunilraman
994 million :smokey:

It's about 2:20 am Tuesday here in NYC, so at about 3 million a day this should be finished by early Thurday morn at the latest.

[BRussell]

995 million at around noon Eastern time. It will probably speed up as we get closer. I'm guessing Thursday too.

[melgross]

Originally posted by BRussell
995 million at around noon Eastern time. It will probably speed up as we get closer. I'm guessing Thursday too.

Right now, according to their counter, it's running at about 1,200 a minute.

But, yeah, as it gets right to the mark, everyone will be holding their fingers over the order button, hoping to be THE ONE.

Just like with Ebay.:lol:

[BRussell]

Hmm, I'm actually starting to think Wednesday. It's at 997+ at around midnight Tuesday night. I'll guess Wednesday afternoon CA time.

[sunilraman]

Originally posted by melgross
Right now, according to their counter, it's running at about 1,200 a minute...But, yeah, as it gets right to the mark, everyone will be holding their fingers over the order button, hoping to be THE ONE......Just like with Ebay.:lol:


heh. sniping on eBay is teh fun :D except when you don't succeed :( :lol:

[rageous]

the only problem with the sniping idea is that the number jumps, sometimes by several thousand, right as it gets close to the 100,000 mark.

i've seen it do this 3 or 4 times at least. twice i've seen it go from about 5,000 short to 2,000 over in a flash.

[melgross]

Originally posted by rageous
the only problem with the sniping idea is that the number jumps, sometimes by several thousand, right as it gets close to the 100,000 mark.

i've seen it do this 3 or 4 times at least. twice i've seen it go from about 5,000 short to 2,000 over in a flash.

Thing is, we have no idea how accurate it is. It seems slow now, for example. but it has to be much faster during the day, because most Tunes are bought here in the US, and when most people are awake.

[CosmoNut]

I'm guessing that to have a shot at actually hitting the 1B number, one should click "Buy" at around 25 or 35k before. You've got to assume that there's a little bit of a delay in the information posting to the site.

[melgross]

Originally posted by CosmoNut
I'm guessing that to have a shot at actually hitting the 1B number, one should click "Buy" at around 25 or 35k before. You've got to assume that there's a little bit of a delay in the information posting to the site.

I don't know. The counter could be off by a 100 thousand at this time. It's not an actual count. I read in several places that it's just an estimate based on average buying rates.

I not sure what will happen when it gets close. Maybe it will change to an actual count. But, I'm not certain if the system can do that. Getting real-time buys immediatly out to the counter may be impossible.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by CosmoNut
I'm guessing that to have a shot at actually hitting the 1B number, one should click "Buy" at around 25 or 35k before. You've got to assume that there's a little bit of a delay in the information posting to the site. Maybe, but who knows, it could even be a bit ahead.

[melgross]

Originally posted by BRussell
Maybe, but who knows, it could even be a bit ahead.

Right now, it has certainly speeded up! I counted a bit over 3,000 songs a minute!

At this rate, my estimate of early Thursday morn will be very close. Unless the sales speed changes again, it should hit slightly before 1:00 am NYC time.

I'll be watching.:)

[sandau]

the counter hasn't caught up, but I'd say its over 1Billion already.

[CosmoNut]

We're within 65k now.

[sandau]

so how does this thing work...is it when you click, purchase, or when you start your download of each song you get an entry? If so, people are backlogged 100,000, imho.

[BRussell]

OK I just bought mine. Maybe I'll buy something else in a little while.

[melgross]

Originally posted by CosmoNut
We're within 65k now.

10K and falling!

[sandau]

done.

[shanmugam]

7k only!!!

[melgross]

Originally posted by shanmugam
7k only!!!

Are you now counting backwards?:lol:

[shanmugam]

i see now one Billion now only...

counter different count in different countries???

[CosmoNut]

The little icon on the iTMS front page changed first here in the U.S. When it said they had a winner the counter on Apple.com had about 3k to go.

[shanmugam]

it could be fictious count down to one billion but closer to the real number of counts ...

[sandau]

Originally posted by shanmugam
it could be fictious count down to one billion but closer to the real number of counts ...

I had to close iTunes to get that sucker to refresh with the one billion.

They updated the link with the "thank you" message.

I love this part "The lucky music fan who downloaded the billionth song from the iTunes Music Store — won a new 20-inch iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card to jumpstart their digital music collection."

$10,000 to 'jumpstart' their music collection...HAHAHAH. Jumpstart...like there would be anything left you wanted to buy!! You'd be gifting everyone you knew after about 5 grand, imho....

[sandau]

i wonder if Steve-o is jumping up and down on his bed saying "YESSSSSS!!!" or if he's just sleeping like a baby through it all...

Or do you think he's down at the office making sure the count is right, micro-managing the billionth song purchased? :) I'd guess he's there bugging the staff... it IS a big milestone for Apple.

[melgross]

They said that they expect to sell an additional billion songs in the next 12 months.

That's quite a speedup.

I wonder about the videos? Will they do something there as well?

At the 100 million mark? I think that's when they had the first prize for the tunes.

They seem to be adding new content to that every day now.

[Xool]

I don't know if Steve is gonna personally call the winner this time. If he was, I'm sure he stayed at the office tonight.

Otherwise he might go home.

[Bergermeister]

Anybody get called yet?

Bet some people are bummin over the calls they missed that left no messages just a tone...

I bought five songs today when the Japan iTMS got close to the billion mark; not a betting man, but what's a couple of dollars for an iMac, 10 5Gs and enough music to throw quite a few really wild parties?

[sandau]

if a spammer was smart he'd spam emails with "You won the 1,000,000,000 prize from iTunes!"

very surprised i haven't seen spam like that.