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No updates to anything for the 500 millionth time (get it? mawhaha). It's iTunes event....no iBooks!
 
Does anyone now the specifics on the contest? Were the "tell a friend" participants really elligible to win? Would Apple really announce the winner to be a person who simply sent a tell a friend email when people were buying millions of songs?

BTW, I already read the rules... I just don't believe those emails were really eligible and were just a way to go around the "gambling license" that would be required if Apple didn't put that in the rules.
 
oskar said:
Does anyone now the specifics on the contest? Were the "tell a friend" participants really elligible to win? Would Apple really announce the winner to be a person who simply sent a tell a friend email when people were buying millions of songs?

BTW, I already read the rules... I just don't believe those emails were really eligible and were just a way to go around the "gambling license" that would be required if Apple didn't put that in the rules.

"Tell a Friend" entries did actually win several times in last year's 100,000,000 promotion (for some 100,000 marks). I personally doubt that a "Tell a Friend" entry has much chance for the 500 mil mark, but certainly they do for each 100k.
 
lilstewart92 said:
well it just hit, nothing happened so far.
I think this is one of those corporate target which does not have too much relevance for the general public. I think this 500 Milliion songs will be used for the future marketing phrase by Apple's advertising agency.
 
I noticed an interesting thing in reviewing the winners list.

I was buying some Final Fantasy soundtracks anyway, and they seem perfect to increase your chances of winning (lots of songs for low price), so I figured I'd give it a shot. I aimed for one of the 100,000 marks, then for the half-bil, based on repeatedly reloading the Apple.com counter (which appeared to "re-synch" to reality every minute or two if you reloaded it).

The interesting thing (other than the song count suddenly spiking from 498,199,500 to 499,201,000, probably on account of the buying spree) was that when I compared my reasonably well-timed purchases to the times given on the winner list on Apple's site, the actual winners were off by a few minutes. It's obviously possible that it's just a clock thing, but it looks like the counter you see and/or when your purchase gets "counted" is off by a few thousand from whatever count they use to calculate winners.

So, basically, timing carefully wasn't going to do you a lot of good.

(Unrelated note: having Final Fantasy soundtracks on iTMS are awesome, but the FF VIII soundtrack and it's orchestral companion don't include Eyes On You by Faye Wong for some reason, causing me to grow very angry for a brief period after not winning anything, either.)
 
Actually, the interesting thing looking at the winners list are the times - funny seeing how the interval between 100,000 songs decreases to just 57 minutes in the build up to the 500m. At that rate, Apple would sell c. 880,000,000 songs a year.
 
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