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iTunes Countdown to 100 Million
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pEZ said:
Actually I was thinking that would be highly likely considering that 75% of people purchasing iPods are PC owners. I think it would also be good for a PC owner to win a PB and "really experience OSX"
Mason said:
well we know they iPod Mini drive maker has a 6 gig version that should be available in quantity in the next few months (for get when... late summer or early fall?). remember; they mentioned Apple had put in an order.....
somewhere else people were scoping what the drives were doing that end up in the full sized ipods. unless Apple has enough buying power to hold back their press releases till Apple promotes a new iPod. then again eventually Apple may use another drive for either device too.
ruud said:
My apologies to you. I didn't check your entire chart. That is not how it was being interpreted by the person that I was replying to in my previous message. They interpreted it as follows:
ITR 81 said:
This person doesn't understand the difference between a median value and an average. They took the average of the highest value and the lowest value which gave them the median value. They chose to ignore the rest of the values in their calculation. That is why my later message in reply to another person said that there were problems with our school system.
Later, Frank
Lancetx said:Amen to that, when my eyes are straining all of those numbers just run together, so commas would help immensely!
If you really want to go blind check out my own monster page of numbers. The right column gives a nice count down (hours:minutes:seconds) until the next winner.
Three and a half hours or so before I can buy a song.
http://ym.muda.org/itunes/
choogheem said:I wonder if you tilt your screen at a certain angle that will increase the chances of winning.
Did anyone else notice that there are 2 free songs to download? Click on the free song, click on the album, go to favorite iMixes and click the free songs iMix. At the bottom of the list is 2 free songs.
There are two free downloads every week, I just recently learned about this, here on macrumors. The second song is called a Free Discovery Download. You will find them by searching the genres and looking at the set of three top images, the dynamic ones. the middle one is usually where the Discovery Download is found.
CyberB0b said:If you really want to go blind check out my own monster page of numbers. The right column gives a nice count down (hours:minutes:seconds) until the next winner.
Three and a half hours or so before I can buy a song.
http://ym.muda.org/kurt/apple/
Now that's the kind of overkill I would have done
Average iTMS Sales Since 9am: 470 per minute...
Using MacRumors' 9:04 am Thursday number of 94,496,906 songs, the store has already gone from:
337 songs per minute pre-promotion (2.7 million/week U.S. + 700,000/week Europe = 3.4 million per week / 10,080 minutes per week = appx. 337 songs per minute), to:
420 songs per minute at around 1:00pm Thursday, to:
475 songs per minute at 11:50pm.
If this rate is sustained, there will be 1 winner every 210 minutes (about 3 1/2 hours), which would mean the whole thing will be over in about 7.4 days, or just before noon on July 8th.
It is worth noting that 475/minute equals 4.7 million songs per week.
This figure will no doubt be averaged down somewhat overnight, BUT it will almost certainly be MORE than made up for by spiking sales the moment we cross the 95 million mark--which should be roughly 3 hours from now, or around 3am!
Setting aside the prizes themselves, this is a BRILLIANT marketing move on Apple's part--if the sales spike high enough, they could conceivably sell 6 million songs this week! If the 10% net profit figure being thrown around is correct (after 65% to the labels and 25% for operational costs), the extra 2 1/2 million song spike due to this promo would still net them an extra $250,000 in additional revenue beyond the norm--minus the $30,000 or so in prize giveaways (which is the retail value, NOT the actual cost to Apple), and they end up pocketing an extra $220,000 AND gaining a TON of kick-ass publicity!
Using MacRumors' 9:04 am Thursday number of 94,496,906 songs, the store has already gone from:
337 songs per minute pre-promotion (2.7 million/week U.S. + 700,000/week Europe = 3.4 million per week / 10,080 minutes per week = appx. 337 songs per minute), to:
420 songs per minute at around 1:00pm Thursday, to:
475 songs per minute at 11:50pm.
If this rate is sustained, there will be 1 winner every 210 minutes (about 3 1/2 hours), which would mean the whole thing will be over in about 7.4 days, or just before noon on July 8th.
It is worth noting that 475/minute equals 4.7 million songs per week.
This figure will no doubt be averaged down somewhat overnight, BUT it will almost certainly be MORE than made up for by spiking sales the moment we cross the 95 million mark--which should be roughly 3 hours from now, or around 3am!
Setting aside the prizes themselves, this is a BRILLIANT marketing move on Apple's part--if the sales spike high enough, they could conceivably sell 6 million songs this week! If the 10% net profit figure being thrown around is correct (after 65% to the labels and 25% for operational costs), the extra 2 1/2 million song spike due to this promo would still net them an extra $250,000 in additional revenue beyond the norm--minus the $30,000 or so in prize giveaways (which is the retail value, NOT the actual cost to Apple), and they end up pocketing an extra $220,000 AND gaining a TON of kick-ass publicity!
svenas1 said:
Your wish is granted. I was thinking the same thing, so I started logging it with a cron job, some PHP, and MySQL. http://www.itunesdaily.com/countdown/
frankly said:
Median, mode and mean could all mean "average" depending on how you interpret it.
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/dictionary/a.html#average
Now what is the simple definition of mean?
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/dictionary/m.html#mean
So that means I can take two #'s and add them together then divide them by 2 and come out with a mean(avg). Sound familar?
Now what is the simple definition of median?
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/dictionary/m.html#median
So this means I would have to list all of the #'s out. Which I didn't do.
If the list was odd this would mean the middle # would equal the median. Which I didn't do.
If the list was even then I would have to take the mean of the two middle #'s. Which I also didn't do.
Just because I say High and Low # you should never assume I was giving you a median.
Now if I would've said this is a "true" avg. or "total avg." then you would've been right. But I didn't.
Quick question. I think I checked the thread thoroughly, but I might have missed it. Is the first ipod given at 95 million or 95.1? The apple page seems to sound like it is at 95.1 as it says that they begin counting down at 95 and then start giving them out every 100,000. Anybody know?
ITR 81 said:
You were wrong and this was proved out when I showed you the math that was used to calculate the actual average. This was the same average that everyone except you has come up with in this forum.
You CAN NOT find the average of the sales over many hours by picking the highest number of sales in one five minute period and the lowest number of sales in one five minute period and averaging those. That is just wrong. What if 90% of the five minute periods were equal to the lowest number? What if the high or low period was an anomaly? Wouldn't this throw your "average" completely out of whack?[/math lesson]
If you still can't see why you were wrong then you need to put down the dictionary and pick up a math book. I'm being completely serious.
The worst part is that you must have read the graph wrong to begin with. The author of the graph has already come in and said that according to the numbers on his graph he matched the average that I calculated. This could not have been the case if the minimum was really 3000 as you said. I think you need to go back to the drawing board. Like I said the first time: you should check your math.
Frank
~Shard~ said:
Sweet sweet chaos theory ... with all the people who are now downloading music any kind of mathematical model people come up with will result in the same fact = it's practically random!
autrefois
macrumors 65816
mighty quinn said:
From what I understand and from what others have said, it starts at 95,100,000.
The excitement with 95 million is just that that's when the chase will begin!
Currently (at 3:10 pm)-94,948,008 songs have been sold. We're getting very close to the 95 million mark soon-I bet in a couple of days the 100 million mark wil be reached.
I was wondering the same thing about whether it started at 95 million or 95.1 million. Then I read the apple page and I think I figured it out. It says, "giving away 50 special 20GB iPods". Then the 100 millionth song purchaser receives the powerbook, a 40 gig ipod, and 10,000 song gift certificate. So if it starts at 95.1 million, then the 100 millionth song purchaser gets a 20 and 40 gig iPod. Which doesn't seem right. So, it seems like it starts at 95 million to me.
Edit: Well, after reading over apple's official rules, it says the first ipod will be given away at the 95.1 millionth download. That doesn't make any sense to me if they're giving away 50 20GB iPods then the grand prize winner gets two ipods. Does this seem wrong to anyone else?
Edit: Well, after reading over apple's official rules, it says the first ipod will be given away at the 95.1 millionth download. That doesn't make any sense to me if they're giving away 50 20GB iPods then the grand prize winner gets two ipods. Does this seem wrong to anyone else?
autrefois said:From what I understand and from what others have said, it starts at 95,100,000.
The excitement with 95 million is just that that's when the chase will begin!
No..It should start at 95M mark. So the 50th iPod will be at 99,900,000 and 100M winner (SOB) will get the grand prize.
From the official rules...
"How You Win. Winners will be determined by the order of the Entries received. One 20GB iPod will be awarded for each Entry sent immediately following the 99,999th song downloaded, until iTunes reaches its 100 millionth Entry. (One 20GB iPod will be given away for the 95,100,000th Entry, 95,200,000th Entry,....99,900,000th Entry). For the 100 millionth Entry, the winner will receive the grand prize: a 40GB iPod, a 17 inch PowerBook computer, and a gift certificate redeemable for 10,000 songs from iTunes (approximate total retail value based on single track pricing: US $13,198). In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrants chances of winning are dependent upon the number of Entries received and the timing of Entries. Each entrant is only eligible to win only one 20GB iPod and/or the grand prize."
OK, so that answers three questions:
1. The first iPod is given away at 95,100,000.
2. The 50th iPod, along with the PowerBook & gift certificate, is given away at 100,000,000.
3. Since, at 470 songs per minute, that's almost 8 songs being sold every second, they have to do a random drawing for the 8 or more people who will technically have bought the winning songs at the exact same moment. I wonder how many simultaneous download streams the iTMS can handle??
"How You Win. Winners will be determined by the order of the Entries received. One 20GB iPod will be awarded for each Entry sent immediately following the 99,999th song downloaded, until iTunes reaches its 100 millionth Entry. (One 20GB iPod will be given away for the 95,100,000th Entry, 95,200,000th Entry,....99,900,000th Entry). For the 100 millionth Entry, the winner will receive the grand prize: a 40GB iPod, a 17 inch PowerBook computer, and a gift certificate redeemable for 10,000 songs from iTunes (approximate total retail value based on single track pricing: US $13,198). In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrants chances of winning are dependent upon the number of Entries received and the timing of Entries. Each entrant is only eligible to win only one 20GB iPod and/or the grand prize."
OK, so that answers three questions:
1. The first iPod is given away at 95,100,000.
2. The 50th iPod, along with the PowerBook & gift certificate, is given away at 100,000,000.
3. Since, at 470 songs per minute, that's almost 8 songs being sold every second, they have to do a random drawing for the 8 or more people who will technically have bought the winning songs at the exact same moment. I wonder how many simultaneous download streams the iTMS can handle??
Freg3000 said:
Why does this make little sense? Makes perfect sense to me:
951 = 1
952 = 2
953 = 3
(etc...)
998 = 48
999 = 49
1,000 = 50
Where's the confusion?