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iTunes 1 Billion Song Contest Ends
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News coverage
ABConline was the first major news network to cover this story on-line.
Disney + Jobs= ABCnews coverage
Kirkmedia said:
ABConline was the first major news network to cover this story on-line.
Disney + Jobs= ABCnews coverage
corywoolf said:
Wow, sore loser. He didn't deserve to win because you, who don't know him, have prejudged his socioeconomic status, and decided he's not had a hard enough life.
Word of advice: most poor people, storm victims, etc., probably are using their money towards more important things than iTunes tracks, right now. So their percentage of the pool of entrants is probably lower, anyhow.
ah come on, besides "yellow" coldplay does have some amazing songs. check out the live stuff on itunes -- like the song "talk". and also, manson isn't devil music. ok ok I'm a fan of both, I'll admit it. but it doesn't surprise me everybody is making fun of the songs, we all like to prove we are the coolest.
seasought, I must know where you got the calvin image or did you do it yourself?
seasought, I must know where you got the calvin image or did you do it yourself?
winner
I hope the winner is a pc user so that when they get their imac they can see what they've been missing!
I hope the winner is a pc user so that when they get their imac they can see what they've been missing!
he is 16 yrs old. you can do a search on myspace.com
type in his name, you can see some pictures of that kid.
type in his name, you can see some pictures of that kid.
thegreatunknown said:
Hi,
I'm the guy who wrote the counter. Yes, I wanted to win too but as I wrote on the web page, I thought my best chance of winning something was to have a counter that works better than Apple's, invite as many people as possible to use it, and ask "Would you please give me one of these 10 free iPods if you happen to win the Grand Prize?"
My counter on your machine was off by 200,000 because of a bug that apparently hit at random Firefox users who left the page opened for a long period of time. The bug was noticed yesterday for the first time (I had the idea for the counter Friday night, worked all weekend on it, published it Monday evening, and it got picked up on forums and aggregators Tuesday night only). I could not take the risk of fixing it and break something for everybody else. So yesterday afternoon, I published the following warning in red color where there was available space on my page:
---
FIREFOX USERS: A very occasional bug was reported by some users where, if this page is left open for a long period, it might not get updated anymore. You can tell by looking at the time stamps above under "Any Proof?". If they are more than 15 minutes old, there is a problem. If this happens to you, go to the Firefox Preferences, empty the Cache (under the Privacy panel), and reload the page.
---
If you were not using Firefox, please let me know (my contact information is on the web site), otherwise I am sorry you got bit by the bug. I worked hard on the thing because:
- it was a very funny, over-the-top geeky thing to do,
- had someone won and shared an iPod with me, it would have been a nice happy-ending karmic story.
The web is really full of incredible goodwill and I always wondered who were the nuts who spend their time writing all these crazy things. It's been a learning experience for me and, I hope, helpful and amusing to others. I'll try to do better next time. A post-mortem will be released later today or tomorrow on my page.
Cheers,
Pierre Saslawsky
http://www.BillionTunesCounter.com
I'm just really sad that the prize was won over a Coldplay song... 
that just sucks! I wanted it to be something I've never heard of. anyway, I'm gunna go to the winner's house and kill him with a sharp knife...
Ha-ha! just kidding
that just sucks! I wanted it to be something I've never heard of. anyway, I'm gunna go to the winner's house and kill him with a sharp knife...Ha-ha! just kidding
photobiker (or anyone else who studies these things),
Is there enough information to tell the following?
1. Exactly when was the billionth song downloaded? (Alex Ostrovsky could of course tell us by looking at his order history.)
2. What did the Apple and BillionTunesCounter.com counters read at that moment?
3. When during the purchase process is an entry counted toward the contest: when you click BUY, when you confirm the purchase, when it starts to process your download, when it actually starts downloading, when it finishes downloading, or after it does final processing of the download?
When the store gets very busy, these events can be many seconds apart. When you queue up purchases, they can be minutes apart. Perhaps somebody who noted their own purchase timing and compared it to their own order history can determine this.
Is there enough information to tell the following?
1. Exactly when was the billionth song downloaded? (Alex Ostrovsky could of course tell us by looking at his order history.)
2. What did the Apple and BillionTunesCounter.com counters read at that moment?
3. When during the purchase process is an entry counted toward the contest: when you click BUY, when you confirm the purchase, when it starts to process your download, when it actually starts downloading, when it finishes downloading, or after it does final processing of the download?
When the store gets very busy, these events can be many seconds apart. When you queue up purchases, they can be minutes apart. Perhaps somebody who noted their own purchase timing and compared it to their own order history can determine this.
What I want to know....
How does the Music Store server count a purchased song? Does it count it right after a user has clicked the buy button? Does it count it right before it starts to download, say when you purchased an album and one song finishes and another is getting ready to start? Or does it count it right after the song has finished downloading?
I was thinking that it counted a song as purchased when I clicked on the buy button. But the order some of my reciepts have been emailed makes me think otherwise.
How does the Music Store server count a purchased song? Does it count it right after a user has clicked the buy button? Does it count it right before it starts to download, say when you purchased an album and one song finishes and another is getting ready to start? Or does it count it right after the song has finished downloading?
I was thinking that it counted a song as purchased when I clicked on the buy button. But the order some of my reciepts have been emailed makes me think otherwise.
Yvan256 said:
Mm. I'm giving myself a headache. I hate logic. I'll admit defeat. Or "I have lost therefore I admit I haven't won". Or something.
How ironic that one of the most currently overplayed songs by an overrated group (they're good, not as great as they self-proclaim themselves to be) was the bilionth song downloaded.
Congrats to Alex though!
Congrats to Alex though!
alexeismertin said:
Agreed - Coldplay is music to have a funeral by. Utterly morose and depressing stuff.
But I'm suss about how the final winner might have been selected - how convenient that it was Coldplay who Apple have used for promos, and the song is called "Speed of sound" - nice and appropriate for an online store, especially one reaching it's billionth song so quickly.
The rules of the contest said it was quite possible that it might not be possible to distinguish who downloaded the billionth song because one or more could do it at the same time. So if they had a few winners to choose from, what chance they would have gone for a random selection as they originally intended when they had this song was in contention?
Congrats to the winner though.
The number of songs being purchased happened so quickly, there was no way you could time your purchase to win. I gave up on watching the counter on Monday. Ten iPods would have been awesome, but if they come out with the next generation next week, the luster would be gone pretty quickly.
Hmmm I wonder how he will pay the $3000 tax bill.
(total approx. retail value of Grand Prize: USD $16,000.00)
All taxes associated with the receipt or use of the prizes are the sole responsibility of each winner.
You think the IRS takes payment in iTune Songs.
(total approx. retail value of Grand Prize: USD $16,000.00)
All taxes associated with the receipt or use of the prizes are the sole responsibility of each winner.
You think the IRS takes payment in iTune Songs.
"I hope that every customer, artist and music company executive takes a moment today to reflect on what we've achieved together during the past three years," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO in a statement. "Over 1 billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the Internet."
Seems like Steve throws a jab at Amazon with the "move from CDs" statement. Nice touch.
Seems like Steve throws a jab at Amazon with the "move from CDs" statement. Nice touch.
Yeah, I think this about every contest that doesn't involve cash prizes. Mainly because my wife was "lucky" enough to win a BMW Z3 in Vegas. The car was $35,000 according to the tax document, so about $8500 in taxes (her income was zero at the time, and we were unmarried). She had to sell the car and made a loss of $10,000 on that, so all in all she ended up with about half of what the car is worth and a lot of hassle.HepperSchepp said:
Still mustn't complain, leaving Vegas $17,500 up is great.