iTunes Countdown to 100 Million

[faintedlife]

I feel the same way... It'd be great to shop till I drop, but realistically, that's just too much music to buy. (I wonder if they give you a time limit that the winner has to spend it by? I bet!)

You're weak. 🙂 I could seriously spend $5,000 for music any day of the week. Minus the fact that I don't have $5,000, and my modem would explode trying to download all that. This promotion ROCKS! Nevertheless it could be the thing that jump starts my massive music library I want to create.

 

[michaelrjohnson]

You're weak. 🙂 I could seriously spend $5,000 for music any day of the week. Minus the fact that I don't have $5,000, and my modem would explode trying to download all that. This promotion ROCKS! Nevertheless it could be the thing that jump starts my massive music library I want to create.

Whoops, i meant to say "...too much music to buy at one time" (thus the comment about the time limit) 😉

 

[danieluk]

 

[faintedlife]

Whoops, i meant to say "...too much music to buy at one time" (thus the comment about the time limit) 😉

haha. Okay. At one time, that'd be too overwhelming.

I'd probably have to live in secluded mountains for five years just to get a taste of what you could buy at a one time 10,000 song splurge.

 

[amols]

Last 1 hour = 30,000
One day = 720,000
One week = 5M+

You know where this is going 🙂 🙂

 

[grouse]

more like 5mil a week

I'm sure others are doing this, but at the current rate 2,500 songs, every five minutes, that makes 30,000 an hour = 720,000 a day and 5,040,000 a week. Now this is assuming a flat selling line.

If it's 2,500 at about 4:30pm BST, 5:30pm SET, and 11:30am in the US, we're probably not at the optimum selling period, which I would assume would be evenings? The servers are probably busiest when it's about
5:00pm on the east coast? Which means that most of Europe is still online and at home, kids in bed etc...

And of course the rate at 5:00am BST is almost certainly not too strong, except for insomniacs. Weekend's should be stronger, unless everyone's doing this at work, and in terms of internet stats, they always fall in the summer (except for specific summer sporting events).

Anyway, I guess I'll have to be in work for about 7:30am BST tomorrow morning to see the 95,000,000 mark passed. And it's BETWEEN those two numbers isn't it, so whaddya think the first one's going to be given away at about....? 11am BST, so you folks in the US are going to have to up bright and early...

Good luck y'all

 

[Dave00]

No purchase necessary

Correct.

It is illegal to have a promotion (in the US) where you require somebody to purchase something to be eligible. That's why you always hear "No Purchase Necessary". You'll probably have to mail in your name and address, then you'll be put in the queue or something of that nature.

Usually how this is done is you have to send in your name, address, etc. on a SASE and they'll send you a "game piece." I've no idea how they'd fit this in with the song count; because an individual getting a "game piece" shouldn't be counted toward the song total. Anyway, it wouldn't make any sense to get a game piece for this promotion; the cost in stamps alone would be 37c x 2 = 74 cents; why not spend the extra quarter and get a song to boot.

--D

 

[MrToast]

Makes you wonder what the downloader of the billionth song will get! 😱

Too bad I don't have a credit card or it would be maxed out by now on iTunes... 🙄

MrToast

 

[Don't panic]

ok, so who's going to keep track and give us daily, weekly and trends charts?
how about a widget itunes ticker? and while you're at it, can you make me one for folding@home?

 

[Applespider]

LOL! I only have iTunes at home. I can just imagine taking my current PB down to Starbucks at 99,999,500 to try to order the winning song over wifi if it's during working hours!

Or will a magic app appear on Version Tracker that sets your iTunes shopping process off when certain numbers appear! 😛

 

[michaelrjohnson]

...why not spend the extra quarter and get a song to boot.

No computer?

Anyhow... I know I'll be entering the promotion by buying a few songs, I've got a gift card waiting to be used 😉

 

[grouse]

no purchase necessary...

The thing with being rewarded for inadvertantly co-inciding with an event outside of your control means that this is covered.

You are effectively being thanked for your custom. You are not entering a competition by buying something. Look at the language in the promotion, all carefully worded. No one is "winning" anything they are "receiving" something, things are being "given away". It's a gift, not a reward.

 

[MrToast]

Just updated....

Delta 2232 songs in 5 minutes.
That's 446.4 songs per minute
That's 26784 songs per hour
That's 642816 songs per day
That's 4499712 songs per week.

Man, this is such GREAT advertising. I'll bet the record companies are peeing their pants they're so happy.

Go Apple!

😀

MrToast

 

[Don't panic]

The thing with being rewarded for inadvertantly co-inciding with an event outside of your control means that this is covered.

You are effectively being thanked for your custom. You are not entering a competition by buying something. Look at the language in the promotion, all carefully worded. No one is "winning" anything they are "receiving" something, things are being "given away". It's a gift, not a reward.

according to apple.com, someone is "winning"

 

[~Shard~]

Makes you wonder what the downloader of the billionth song will get! 😱

I think he'll receive one of the mythical 3 GHz PowerMacs. By the time the billionth song is downloaded I'm sure it's still be an urban legend and people will be questioning its release... 😉 😎

 

[BornAgainMac]

That would be funny if Bill Gates won the big prize.

 

[~Shard~]

I think this is an excellent promotion. And yes, people are no doubt going to try and find ways to predict when the important songs will be downloaded, and there may be nuts out there who try downloading 1000 songs, but in the end, this is probably exactly what Apple wants! As a result of this promotion there is going to be a significant increase in downloads from iTMS, which means more revenue for Apple!

Now if only they had iTMS in Canada.... 🙁 😉

 

[Dave00]

Timing

This could backfire seriously. There will be a lot of sales around the 100,000 marks. Then a slump to the next 100,000. A lot of sales. slump. A lot of sales. slump. etc... 😀

Unlikely. Given that there are several hundred thousand sold every day, and that there's probably some lag between the actual number and the update on Apple's front page, it'd be nearly impossible to try to time your purchase. Not that I'm not going to try. 🙂 I would think that it would spur alot of people to keep pushing reload on the counter page, which might create some problems with Apple's server.

--D

 

[svenas1]

Just updated....

Delta 2232 songs in 5 minutes.
That's 446.4 songs per minute
That's 26784 songs per hour
That's 642816 songs per day
That's 4499712 songs per week.

Man, this is such GREAT advertising. I'll bet the record companies are peeing their pants they're so happy.

Go Apple!

😀

MrToast

just calculated 475 songs/minnute - so these numbers seem fairly accurate. But I wonder how uniform sales are going to be across 24 hrs. We should do a longer comparison and check 24hr data. ;-)

 

[~Shard~]

Unlikely. Given that there are several hundred thousand sold every day, and that there's probably some lag between the actual number and the update on Apple's front page, it'd be nearly impossible to try to time your purchase. Not that I'm not going to try. 🙂 I would think that it would spur alot of people to keep pushing reload on the counter page, which might create some problems with Apple's server.

I agree, I don't see any slumps in sales either. As for people hammering Apple's site to refresh the main page, I could see this happening too. Hmm, maybe Apple has just provided us with a lesson on "How to Successfully Launch a DoS Attack on Yourself"... 😉

 

[michaelrjohnson]

The thing with being rewarded for inadvertantly co-inciding with an event outside of your control means that this is covered.

You are effectively being thanked for your custom. You are not entering a competition by buying something. Look at the language in the promotion, all carefully worded. No one is "winning" anything they are "receiving" something, things are being "given away". It's a gift, not a reward.

I guess i'm not sure of your point. It's not a game of words, its a law to prevent the exclusion of people (I can't find a statement of this law, though)

 

[michaelrjohnson]

just calculated 475 songs/minnute - so these numbers seem fairly accurate. But I wonder how uniform sales are going to be across 24 hrs. We should do a longer comparison and check 24hr data. ;-)

This is turning into a research project!
😱

 

[Dave00]

ok, so who's going to keep track and give us daily, weekly and trends charts?

It's a shame the numbers are put up as an image file; if there were a way to actually pull the number off the page one could make a nice little tracker...

 

[autrefois]

Apple says, on http://www.apple.com/itunes/100million/, "watch for Official Rules."

Isn't it odd to prominently advertise a promotion and not post the official rules at the same time, especially considering how close they are to 95 million?

In my opinion, if "no purchase" is indeed necessary, people downloading a free tune should be eligible to win. Sending an entry in by "snail mail" doesn't seem to make sense, as others have pointed out.

Can one download a free song an unlimited number of times? Couldn't we just keep downloading free songs in hopes of winning?

I assume they would find a way around this in the rules, but I don't see how else they can have no purchase necessary and still base it on the download count.

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

Just bought a gift card from Target. Probably going to get another. Now I just have to figure out what songs to download. 🙄