Apple Computer, Inc. has launched their “iTunes Music Store Billion Songs Coundown.”
Music lovers like you in 21 countries around the globe have purchased nearly one billion songs from the iTunes Music Store. And as we count down to this massive milestone in digital music history, we’d like to thank you for joining us.
We’ve got one billion reasons to celebrate, and we’re starting with you. As we mark our way to one billion, the music fans who download every 100,000th song will receive a prize package featuring a black 4GB iPod nano and a $100 iTunes Music Card (good for any media type).
And if you’re the lucky grand-prize winner who downloads the billionth song from the iTunes Music Store, you’ll receive a 20-inch iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card (good for any media type) to jumpstart your digital music collection. In addition, Apple will create a full-ride scholarship in your name to a world-renowned music school. Just think: You could help launch the careers of an entire generation of musicians.
The best digital jukebox and the #1 music download store, iTunes is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase, and download music. Visit the iTunes Music Store 24/7, purchase individual songs or entire albums, search and browse for new music, enjoy groundbreaking personal use rights, then sync everything to your iPod seamlessly.
Apple has a “Billion Songs Countdown” counter running on Apple.com which currently stands at 950,783,905.
More info and official rules here.
Wonder if the winner will also get a phone call from Steve Jobs?
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Related articles:
Apple launches iTunes Music Store Countdown to half a billion songs; win 10 iPods, 10,000 songs – July 05, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs phones 100 millionth song winner at 12:45 am – July 12, 2004
SWEET! I cannot believe iTunes is approaching one billion. I wonder what they will give away when they hit one trillion!
This go around, I am going to win an iPod gosh darnit.
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I wonder if we could pick the music school? If so, I would definitely pick Eastman School of Music – my alma mater.
Imagine when they reach 1 brazilian! Even GW will be impressed then!
I clicked the link and watched the numbers roll.
That is very impressive.
Wish me luck.
~M
Quebec is excluded from participating .. again.
but then .. so is India, China, Central and South America, the Arab countries, the Balkans, and and .. errr .. all the people with the coolest music are excluded. pfffttt. C’mon Stevo .. get a fooking clue, dude.
Great Stuff, I have a few of those 900mill + songs.
Does anyone have the sales figures for the Aussie site that was the last to join the frey?
Leo
Africa. eh? sup with that?
Damn. Have get the credit card ready.
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*Increasing the credit limit to 49 128 665*
This time I will win
Damn typo.
This falls into the same category as trying to count randomly perforated holes in ceiling-tiles (circa 1960’s public schools)…
Watching Apple’s homepage and trying to decide whether or not the iTunes countdown is actual (real-time) or not.
Gogga-go, I’ve got paint drying and I don’t want to miss it!
Took ~3 yrs to hit a billion. A trillion would be a thousand times that.
People just don’t deal well with orders of magnitude, do they?
Even McDonalds just said “billions and billions served”.
Actualy, it’s not on Apple.com, it is on the ITMS. If you click on the ITMS counter it takes you to http://www.apple.com/itunes/1billion.
My daughter’s engraved birthday iPod Nano just came in the mail today. She’s in heaven!
151days 6hours 26mins 15secs to go
Launching this prize will speed it up a bit…
Must go and buy the new Belle and Sebastian album out yesterday…
cool, I just noticed that they added some Showtime shows to the mix of TV Show’s. And with all the TV being downloaded as of late, does anyone know if they’re still separating out music from video in their counts. Mostly, I’m just wondering if I should delay my purchase of Weeds, until it might win me something?
It’s not a real-time counter. It counts up too regularly. If it was real-time, you’d expect it to count up in fits and spurts. Instead, my guess is that when you first load the page, you get the actual number downloaded so far, then it counts up from there based on the current average songs/minute.
The counter displays the current number sold when the page loads and then just counts up from there… not realtime and not accurate. You have to keep reloading the page to get an accurate count.
Looking at the edges of the paint, I can notice the lighter color where it has dried.
In response to gwm
“.. so is India, China, Central and South America, the Arab countries, the Balkans, and and .. errr .. all the people with the coolest music are excluded.”
He is so right! All the people of the world where some of the coolest music is born and promoted from the grass roots long before it hits American mainstream is not available. Furthermore, the music stores in the G8 are nice, but we need more penetration in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central Europe, the Pacific Islands.
I have lived and travled to many places and it never ceases to amaze me the purchasing power of people in the “3rd” world. Some places can’t afford 3 square meals per day, but everyone wears Nike Sneakers and Levi Jeans. A lof of countries around the world do not have stable access to electricity but the mobile phone push/penetration is mind boggling. A lot of countries don’t even have Automatic Tellar Machines (ATM’s) but they have western union and multiple ways to get money in and out quite easily.
Come on Steve, put your thinking cap on and let’s get some music to the rest of us. We are sick and tired of reading about 100 million and 1 billion songs to the G8, you have about 70% of the planet that has not even seen iTunes and your tooting your horn already!
Dude, spread the joy a little bit, please
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If the countdown clock is any indication it looks as if they are selling 100 songs every ten seconds.
Listen up!
As a close watcher of the last coundown (including buying over 500 songs near the end) I can tell you from hard experience that the countdown timer and when the actual song sold were off about 3 and a half hours!!!!
So the timer is not being updated in real time.
I can talk to Steve Jobs anytime I want, so really it’s no big deal.
This falls into the same category as trying to count randomly perforated holes in ceiling-tiles (circa 1960’s public schools)…
Actually the holes were randomly placed only once, in the tooling that made those tiles. Thereafter all the tiles were identical.
Now back to watching your paint dry. Or if you are lucky, your grass grow. Me, I’m just watching the snow fall.
To gwb/Reginald
The reason why you don’t see Apple in those countries is because Apple is focusing on:
– countries where 90% of the music sold is actually purchased.
– countries with the highest penetration of computers per capita
– countries with high penetration of credit cards per capita
– countries with strong copyright laws.
All those countries that you mention have very high piracy rates and the governments aren’t doing anything to stop it. I have travelled to countries in those areas and you can go and buy a whole album for ~ $5 (US) from a street vendor. That is about 50c/track. Apple knows that it can’t compete with that unless it is willing to take a loss or just put on-line stores in the hope that it will help them sell iPods. I read a report in where countries like Paraguay ~90% of music is pirated. If I was Apple I wouldn’t bother.
I think Apple is hitting those markets that will bring them profits in a short time frame
umm… Quebec isn’t a country. It’s a Canadian province.