Solver said:
Or use a gift card you received from someone else,
thus you haven't spent anything when you download
a song and a chance to win...
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iTunes Countdown to 100 Million
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Or use a gift card you received from someone else,
thus you haven't spent anything when you download
a song and a chance to win...
iTunes countdown to $50 million
I don't know the percentage they take for each song is but believe me it's a hefty amount. I understand that free is free and free is good, but my point is that what they're putting into this promotion by way of prizes is the minutest fraction of what they get out of our collective pockets for buying the songs in the first place. Which seem to be a bit mean.
Mind you, all you lot seem to be chomping at the bit so from their point of view it's a massive hit. I love Apple but I have one thing to say to anyone who changes their buying habbits because of this promotion and that is, with the greatest respect: Good luck suckers!
coolfactor said:
I don't know the percentage they take for each song is but believe me it's a hefty amount. I understand that free is free and free is good, but my point is that what they're putting into this promotion by way of prizes is the minutest fraction of what they get out of our collective pockets for buying the songs in the first place. Which seem to be a bit mean.
Mind you, all you lot seem to be chomping at the bit so from their point of view it's a massive hit. I love Apple but I have one thing to say to anyone who changes their buying habbits because of this promotion and that is, with the greatest respect: Good luck suckers!
Profit and greed?
Not true:
Agreed--and that's just Apple's cut of the .99--Apple's EXPENSES come out of that. Credit card charges, employees, servers, bandwidth. So in fact Apple lost money on every sale at first, and now makes only a very SLIGHT profit. Much less than the 20-cents-before-expenses. (And likely a LOSS when you pay less than .99--such as buying an album--because Apple's operating expenses per song don't go down just because the price does.) iTunes is not a profit center in and of itself--and if you think that Apple's lying, keep in mind the laws they'd break for lying about that, and keep in mind that no other music store is making money from downloads either.
This promotion is good business with long-term mindshare benefits, but it's directly COSTING Apple money to give all that away. Hardly greed or some kind of scam.
Prize drawings with purchases are a VERY commonplace form of marketing--only most of them are with purchases that really ARE nicely profitable. So calling Apple "mean" is hard for me to understand.
Dom Martin said:
Not true:
MrToast said:
Agreed--and that's just Apple's cut of the .99--Apple's EXPENSES come out of that. Credit card charges, employees, servers, bandwidth. So in fact Apple lost money on every sale at first, and now makes only a very SLIGHT profit. Much less than the 20-cents-before-expenses. (And likely a LOSS when you pay less than .99--such as buying an album--because Apple's operating expenses per song don't go down just because the price does.) iTunes is not a profit center in and of itself--and if you think that Apple's lying, keep in mind the laws they'd break for lying about that, and keep in mind that no other music store is making money from downloads either.
This promotion is good business with long-term mindshare benefits, but it's directly COSTING Apple money to give all that away. Hardly greed or some kind of scam.
Prize drawings with purchases are a VERY commonplace form of marketing--only most of them are with purchases that really ARE nicely profitable. So calling Apple "mean" is hard for me to understand.
MrToast said:
awesome. im really interested in how you did this. mind sharing the code?
if you do send me an emailthanks!
Last edited:
Dom Martin said:
I wasn't going to jump on this "Burn"wagon, but I just had to.
Yes, they have sold almost 100,000,000 songs, but that doesn't translate into $100,000,000. For example, an album with 15 songs, may still cost $9.99. That's only $10 for 15 songs.
Now, on top of that, Apple doesnt' keep this money! Are you serious? This is the whole concept, Apple, the Music Labels and the Artists get paid too... all out of the same $.99. Apple doesn't make very much money on iTMS at all, in fact, the standard rate for the Labels is $.70/song (Linked Article) leaving a $.29 window for Apple to squeeze operating costs and profit into. Accoriding to Steve Jobs, iTMS is a Loss/Break-Even venture in terms of song sales. (Linked Articles)
So you see, Apple is being generous, not greedy.
Edit: Several posts with similar info.
Can you even login to iTunes store after 95 million?
I doubt anybody's gonna win though. They'll release a list of the winners, but they'll probably be Apple employees or friends of Steve. There's no way people will know which number they bought, the tracks don't even come w/ a number.
I doubt anybody's gonna win though. They'll release a list of the winners, but they'll probably be Apple employees or friends of Steve. There's no way people will know which number they bought, the tracks don't even come w/ a number.
FuzzyBallz said:
Right......just because you don't know your song didn't download as number 94,689,051 didn't mean it didn't. I am sure Apple has data on every single song ever purchased from the store. And since you need to have a valid Apple ID or AOL account to use the store, your billing/shipping address, e-mail, and phone number are already available for Apple to contact you.
FuzzyBallz said:
That's absurd. First of all, Apple employees get discounts on hardware and software, why would they have to win this just to get computers/ipods? Additionally, "friends of Steve"? Are you kidding? He's one of the highest paid CEO's in the country. But let's put all that aside.
I'm almost positive that Apple employees will not be allowed to win any prizes. If you look at almost any promotion, it will exclude employees and family members of employees from winning.
A few things:
I haven't read much on the Page 2 rumors of the black iPods but could that be what these special iPods are?
I would anticipate that the free songs would count as a purchase. Any time I buy a free song I still get an invoice. Not sure but... could be. Some of the text on the site says the Xth downloaded song and some of the text says the Xth song purchased.
Buying an album with 99 songs on it for $9.99 would probably increase your bang for your buck... Although the songs probably won't be any good.
Typically employees of the prize giving company are *not* eligible for the prize. So no worries there most likely.
I'm sure we'll all be scouring the official rules when they get posted...
Anyhow... just some thoughts... no facts of course.
I haven't read much on the Page 2 rumors of the black iPods but could that be what these special iPods are?
I would anticipate that the free songs would count as a purchase. Any time I buy a free song I still get an invoice. Not sure but... could be. Some of the text on the site says the Xth downloaded song and some of the text says the Xth song purchased.
Buying an album with 99 songs on it for $9.99 would probably increase your bang for your buck... Although the songs probably won't be any good.
Typically employees of the prize giving company are *not* eligible for the prize. So no worries there most likely.
I'm sure we'll all be scouring the official rules when they get posted...
Anyhow... just some thoughts... no facts of course.
Add a banner to your home page
I got bored here at work and made a banner for the countdown. It's live updating; should match Apple's site when you load it.
image source is:
http://www.spinningplates.net/jason/itunes.php
I would appreciate a nod/link to my site if you use it.
http://www.spinningplates.net/jason/
However, it's not necessary.
I got bored here at work and made a banner for the countdown. It's live updating; should match Apple's site when you load it.
image source is:
http://www.spinningplates.net/jason/itunes.php
I would appreciate a nod/link to my site if you use it.
http://www.spinningplates.net/jason/
However, it's not necessary.
bigdog said:I got bored here at work and made a banner for the countdown. It's live updating; should match Apple's site when you load it.
image source is:
http://www.spinningplates.net/jason/itunes.php
I would appreciate a nod/link to my site if you use it.
http://www.spinningplates.net/jason/
However, it's not necessary.
Very very cool!
MrToast
your sig should be...mymemory said:What do I do? what do I do? to buy songs all the time until I reach the person 100 million?
<img>http://www.vjrei.com/2.1/Rei21.jpg</img>
replace the <> with [] and you are all set.
Of course, you realize that what we need now is something that takes the current value and current rate of change into account to predict the optimum time to buy a song.
Better it be someone on this list that some random punk, right?
Edit: at current rate, you've got about a 0.1 second window to buy (I'm guessing the rate will pick up; right now, you've got a little more than a tenth of a second). Given that, and the uncertainly as to how quickly Apple updates their numbers, the best you can probably hope for is a five-minute window in which to buy, giving you a 1-in-3000 shot. Even if you could narrow it down to a minute - which assumes some knowledge of Apple's delay in updating the count - your odds are still 600-1 against.
But hey, it's fun to watch!
Better it be someone on this list that some random punk, right?
Edit: at current rate, you've got about a 0.1 second window to buy (I'm guessing the rate will pick up; right now, you've got a little more than a tenth of a second). Given that, and the uncertainly as to how quickly Apple updates their numbers, the best you can probably hope for is a five-minute window in which to buy, giving you a 1-in-3000 shot. Even if you could narrow it down to a minute - which assumes some knowledge of Apple's delay in updating the count - your odds are still 600-1 against.
But hey, it's fun to watch!
MrToast said:
I don't feel like finding the author of that graph because I do have work to do, but the person needs to modify his/her code for the songs-per-second graph. Apple delays numbers on the hour, causing this graph to bottom out then spike. Difference from X:55 to Y:05 should be divided by two and graphed accordingly for a more professional look.
MrToast said:Hi Everyone!
I have created a VERY simple application that will count how many songs have been downloaded from the iTMS. It will not keep track of past counts. This is just to save you from refreshing Apple.com every 3 minutes.
Also, this doesn't work if you're behind serious firewalls.
Preliminary tests show that the number changes every 2 or 3 minutes, which means that the "Update" button won't be too useful.
Get it here: (Windows and Mac OS X in the same archive)
http://mrtoast.spymac.net/iTMS.zip
Thanks to Seth Willits for compiling. Visit his site! http://www.freaksw.com Buy his software!
Enjoy! (Feel free to mirror the archive)
MrToast
Awesome little app.
So is there a way to put the counter up in the menu bar?
Is there someone out there that could help MrToast if this can't be done with this app?
Where is the custom icon? (5 minutes to write app....3 hours to design cool icon)
just kidding...Thanks!!!!
Very cool, bigdog. The Apple counter updates every few minutes and your banner follows along
(And I notice the Apple.com album covers are random every time--not even the same per background color--whether the number's new or not.)
I just hope Apple added extra Xserves for the cyclical peaks they will see due to that visible counter
bigdog said:
(And I notice the Apple.com album covers are random every time--not even the same per background color--whether the number's new or not.)
I just hope Apple added extra Xserves for the cyclical peaks they will see due to that visible counter