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iTunes Countdown to 100 Million
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It does occur to me...
Sorry to rain on the parade, but it does occur to me that the "official" numbers that Apple is posting could be totally off--that is, I'm sure the numbers themselves are accurate (no reason to lie about this, and it'd be a P.R. disaster if they did), but the *timing* on everyone's chart could be off by a half-hour or more, due to simple server & bandwidth strain. The server glitch last night (around 7pm) is a case in point--the number spike didn't show up until around the 20,000-PAST-the-giveaway point on that one.
In other words, it's conceivable that everyone (including myself) who is doing madbuying just before the number crosses the 100K point could actually be making our purchases at the exact *wrong* spot!
Of course, there's no way of proving this one way or the other, and it's still fun to watch, and you *are* still getting the songs you purchased as normal, so I guess we keep watching the charts & graphs... 🙂
Freg3000 said:
Sorry to rain on the parade, but it does occur to me that the "official" numbers that Apple is posting could be totally off--that is, I'm sure the numbers themselves are accurate (no reason to lie about this, and it'd be a P.R. disaster if they did), but the *timing* on everyone's chart could be off by a half-hour or more, due to simple server & bandwidth strain. The server glitch last night (around 7pm) is a case in point--the number spike didn't show up until around the 20,000-PAST-the-giveaway point on that one.
In other words, it's conceivable that everyone (including myself) who is doing madbuying just before the number crosses the 100K point could actually be making our purchases at the exact *wrong* spot!
Of course, there's no way of proving this one way or the other, and it's still fun to watch, and you *are* still getting the songs you purchased as normal, so I guess we keep watching the charts & graphs... 🙂
Psychedelic iTMS counter 2
I integrated a primitve graph in the Psychedelic iTMS counter at:
http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/itmspsychedeliccount.htm
It adds a scaled graph in the background from the stats it loaded while the counter is running in your browser so you may have to wait a few minutes so the graph has a few samples. Note that the graph plots its mirror image (because it looks good 😉 ) It will show up to the last 50 counts, each taken every 100 seconds. I thought about adding numbers on the graph but I want to keep this simple and artsy. And I doubt anyone will use the graph feature seriously on my counter 😛
So have fun! 😀 (again)
I integrated a primitve graph in the Psychedelic iTMS counter at:
http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/itmspsychedeliccount.htm
It adds a scaled graph in the background from the stats it loaded while the counter is running in your browser so you may have to wait a few minutes so the graph has a few samples. Note that the graph plots its mirror image (because it looks good 😉 ) It will show up to the last 50 counts, each taken every 100 seconds. I thought about adding numbers on the graph but I want to keep this simple and artsy. And I doubt anyone will use the graph feature seriously on my counter 😛
So have fun! 😀 (again)
nagromme
macrumors G5
Emails
Re receipt emails: at some point weeks ago, mine started coming about a day after purchase. I'm guessing that Apple waits a few hours to see if you buy more, thus combining transactions to lower their credit-card transaction expensese?
Anyway, the delayed-email thing isn't new with the promo.
FYI, I got 2 more songs without art (that's 3 out of 15), but I'm in contact with cystomer service. We'll see what happens. I CAN drag the art from Amazon if I must, but they seem to want to fix it.
Also, I'm getting a fair amount of "try again" errors, even at rock-bottom non-peak times. Certain songs will be troublesome for a while, while other songs on the same album will be fine.
Maybe some glitches as Apple adds more Xserves 🙂
Re receipt emails: at some point weeks ago, mine started coming about a day after purchase. I'm guessing that Apple waits a few hours to see if you buy more, thus combining transactions to lower their credit-card transaction expensese?
Anyway, the delayed-email thing isn't new with the promo.
FYI, I got 2 more songs without art (that's 3 out of 15), but I'm in contact with cystomer service. We'll see what happens. I CAN drag the art from Amazon if I must, but they seem to want to fix it.
Also, I'm getting a fair amount of "try again" errors, even at rock-bottom non-peak times. Certain songs will be troublesome for a while, while other songs on the same album will be fine.
Maybe some glitches as Apple adds more Xserves 🙂
BlueDjinn said:
Your post has aided me in getting accross what I was about to say - and that is, we essentially have 50 'dry runs' before the BIG 100mill. We get to watch trends, timing and frequency of purchases. This, I hope, will help us (and really, me alone since I want to be the one to win 😉) get the timing right.
44 more to go... 🙂
OK, cancel the promotion, Apple. I want to buy some music today, and the store keeps giving me errors. I've tried three times to look in my shopping cart, and it goes away forever. Maybe they've gotten a sudden boost to their business with this promo, but if it inconveniences me personally, it's got to stop! I'm sure you would all agree.
FelixDerKater
macrumors 68040
What's the deal with shopping carts not being accessible even when we are nowhere near another 100,000 mark? This has been going on all day.
MacFan25
macrumors 68000
Yes, I believe this is what they do. I'm just wondering why it seems that their New Music Tuesday email seems to get sent out later and later. I got this past one on Thursday. The past few weeks I have gotten it on Wednesdays. I don't mean to complain, as it really doesn't matter if the email is a little bit later, just something I have found a little strange.Doctor Q said:
Mr_Ed
macrumors 65816
Man, I'been trying to download a couple of tracks from iTMS but response from the site is HORRIBLE! I guess the promotion is working . . . . .
🙂
Response was not too bad for previewing songs and adding them to the shopping cart but when it came time to look in my shopping cart response went down the toilet. I'm talking 'go and get a cup of coffee' level of response here. I'm on high speed (cable) connection.
Also, on the update of purchased music on the Apple home page: I believe they are updating more than once a day from what I have seen but I'm not sure how often. I don't think it would be easy for anyone to "time their purchases" especially when you take into account the slow response from heavy access.
[Edit] I guess when you think about it, Apple should have done something about server capacity in anticipation of heavy use from this promotion. They could reach their goal much faster if they would handle the increased load gracefuly. I have now been waiting for well over 5 minutes to see my shopping cart and am still waiting . . .
🙂
Response was not too bad for previewing songs and adding them to the shopping cart but when it came time to look in my shopping cart response went down the toilet. I'm talking 'go and get a cup of coffee' level of response here. I'm on high speed (cable) connection.
Also, on the update of purchased music on the Apple home page: I believe they are updating more than once a day from what I have seen but I'm not sure how often. I don't think it would be easy for anyone to "time their purchases" especially when you take into account the slow response from heavy access.
[Edit] I guess when you think about it, Apple should have done something about server capacity in anticipation of heavy use from this promotion. They could reach their goal much faster if they would handle the increased load gracefuly. I have now been waiting for well over 5 minutes to see my shopping cart and am still waiting . . .
it's probably all of the apps running grabbing the sales count that are slowing down the site 😉
I tested whether it knows what is in my shopping cart, by trying to put something in that was already in. Sure enough, I got the "already in your shopping cart" message.
I get the feeling that I can make purchases today only if I switch to the 1-click method, assuming that works, since shopping carts don't.
I get the feeling that I can make purchases today only if I switch to the 1-click method, assuming that works, since shopping carts don't.
Buhuuuu!
Oh why oh why don't I still live in France...Or why didn't I keep my bank account...Sniff!
I so wanted an iPod... A 17" PB wouldn't have hurt me either 😛
Last check says 95,724,963.
Smart way of boosting sales. Jolly good work steve.
Oh why oh why don't I still live in France...Or why didn't I keep my bank account...Sniff!
I so wanted an iPod... A 17" PB wouldn't have hurt me either 😛
Last check says 95,724,963.
Smart way of boosting sales. Jolly good work steve.
asif786
macrumors 65816
Doctor Q said:
That won;t work, it will just trip up when it comes to purchasing/downloading im afraid.
i've had to email email aound 3 times becuase my downloads keep on disappearing at the end of the download process - so apple thinks i've downloaded it, but I havent. might just leave purchases until tomorrow...
too late - even as you posted, I'm sure...but MAN, I can't WAIT untill 99,980,000ish - I'm so gonna buy buy buy!afields said:
Re: It does occur to me..
Of course there is! If that were the case the spikes in the graphs (http://itunescount.tijdweb.nl/index.php) would be shifted a little bit to the right of every 100,000 mark but they seem to correlate exactly (however, there seems to be a shift of around 5 minutes for the 96,500,000 and something happen for the 95,300,000 because it looks rather flat).
This means that the countings reported by Apple's servers are pretty much in real time and that the best strategy still seems to be to buy right before Apple's count reaches a 100,000 mark.
Mr. E.
BlueDjinn said:
Of course there is! If that were the case the spikes in the graphs (http://itunescount.tijdweb.nl/index.php) would be shifted a little bit to the right of every 100,000 mark but they seem to correlate exactly (however, there seems to be a shift of around 5 minutes for the 96,500,000 and something happen for the 95,300,000 because it looks rather flat).
This means that the countings reported by Apple's servers are pretty much in real time and that the best strategy still seems to be to buy right before Apple's count reaches a 100,000 mark.
Mr. E.
Today's update, for the nerdish.
On average, iTMS sales are running at 29.36% over where they were just before this started, and some 143.4% over the lifetime average of the Store.
Furthermore, since Thursday afternoon (BST), Apple has sold over 1.3M tracks at a run-rate of nearly 538,700 tracks/day or 3.77 milion tracks/week. This compares with around 380,500 tracks/day which was the run-rate just before the promo started, and around 219,800 tracks/day over the lifetime of the store.
Where I come from, this is called a success and I only hope that our friends at BuyMusic, Loudcloud, Napster, OD2 et al can join in our moment of triumph and jubilee. Although they're probably trying to work out how to salvage their businesses whilst crying into their latte.
On average, iTMS sales are running at 29.36% over where they were just before this started, and some 143.4% over the lifetime average of the Store.
Furthermore, since Thursday afternoon (BST), Apple has sold over 1.3M tracks at a run-rate of nearly 538,700 tracks/day or 3.77 milion tracks/week. This compares with around 380,500 tracks/day which was the run-rate just before the promo started, and around 219,800 tracks/day over the lifetime of the store.
Where I come from, this is called a success and I only hope that our friends at BuyMusic, Loudcloud, Napster, OD2 et al can join in our moment of triumph and jubilee. Although they're probably trying to work out how to salvage their businesses whilst crying into their latte.
Whyren
macrumors 6502a
respin4 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that graph just based off of numbers coming from Apple's site anyway?
Also interesting to note, looking at the numbers: the last numbers before the last two 100,000 rollovers were quite interesting--
Before the 95,700,000 mark, the number was 95,699,366
Before the 95,800,000 mark, the number was 95,799,366
Quite the coincidence! Conspiracy theorists, your turn! 😉
Whyren said:
Yes - and that is what makes the "real-time update" theory valid. Apple's numbers reflect the buying spree around each turnover point. If Apple's numbers were offset or delayed then the spikes would appear delayed too!
Also, from a legal perspective, they have to make sure that their numbers are real time, because that is exactly what is implied and their is no disclaimer on the website to indicate otherwise. The iTMS count is strongly influencing buying behavior, so if these numbers were not real-time then I smell a class action law-suit!
But who cares. This is a brilliant promotion. Whatever keeps Apple ticking is good for me. Plus am buying more music than I probably should 😀