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McDonald's Denies Deal With iTunes
fdiv_bug writes "Turns out, according to a press release, that the iTunes Music Store/McDonald's deal mentioned earlier today was only a rumor. A swing and a miss for the New York Post." It sounded pretty plausible, even if the cost was roughly 50% more than McDonald's usual yearly advertising expenditures.
do deals? Announce a deal idea on /., watch the community debate it, get a bunch of ideas from it. Free brainstorming from the /. community.
1. Invent boy band
2. Tie download of boy band song to Happy Meals
3. Profit!
I happen to know that the deal was for real, but that the contract was stored on an external FireWire drive that was connected to a iBook running Panther, which is the same thing as saying it was deleted.
(or was it lost when saved using Panther's new FileVault feature, which acts as an auxiliary trash can? To be honest, I forget now.)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Oh well, there's always Pepsi starting in February...
David
Not that McDonalds is much better. Or any better, actually.
This was a definite non-denial denial. "There are no agreements to announce" doesn't say anything about agreements under consideration, etc.
Also, I seriously doubt that McDonalds would pay $1 billion for $1 billion songs, first there's gotta be a volume discount in the billions, second, not every song is going to be redeemed so it doesn't make any sense that they would pay for the songs that don't get bought.
Microsoft's president Steve Ballmer was seen celebrating the news. Ugh...makes you ill just watching it!
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Apple denies it like rumors of G5's and updated Powerbooks. Could that mean my precious G5 PB is coming?
While it's hard to tell from a press release that's been groomed by a PR department of a major international corporation, I still sense that this isn't a very strong denial.
All the press release says is that they haven't announced anything yet, and that the reports are speculation. (This is something we all knew ANYWAY.) This could've been released to deflate expectations a bit before the real announcement.... or it in fact could be that they have no plans to do the iTMS deal.
In either case, I'm not getting my hopes up, but then again, I didn't have my hopes up when the rumor first floated. I figured that if the deal would happen, it probably wouldn't happen right away.
If Slashdot is going to start posting erroneous stories from tabloids such as the New York Post, they should instead post stories from the Weekly World News. I don't believe what a newspaper says unless it has BatBoy endorsing it!
New today: litterboxes for humans!
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/news/index.cfm
WE LIED
fuck, shes back, quick everybody, act like we're not home, also $$$$$exyGal come back, please!!!
Neither one nor the other. Who cares, whether it is true or false?
I've been at the counter of my local McDonalds since reading the press release, waiting to get my free iTunes, and now I stink of grease!
Thanks Apple!
At least we can still dream about Superdriving our combo and ordering a Big iMac and files to go with it.
I think everyone would have to wonder if McDonalds just pulled this stunt to get some free publicity. 1. Pretend you're being a nice company and deal out free music 2. Deny it, and save yourself the money. 3. Create media attention to suck in everyone 4. ??? 5. Profit!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
DES MOINES, Iowa (Dow Jones)--McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD - News) characterized a published report that it plans a massive digital song giveaway promotion as "pure speculation."
/. issues a retraction, try RTFD (Reading the F**king Dictionary). Can we set up some kind of dictionary fund for /. editors? Like this or this?
It's "pure speculation". Notice they didn't say anything against/for it. Speculation is a very neutral term. Merriam Webster says:
Speculation: an act or instance of speculating
And speculating means: to meditate on or ponder a subject
McD is still WORKING ON IT! Doesn't mean they've decided one way or another, it's just that they're thinking about IT! Before
The age old question has just been answered.
Ronald McDonald DOES read SlashDot.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
all of the nerds who make the iTunes service run surely care.
Billion-dollar deals don't just poof out of thin air, there probably is something behind this. All they said is that there is no agreement right now, if they had no plans, they would probably say more than that. It does strike me as a bit odd, however, that they would buy these songs at-cost, and give them away as a marketing campaign. But Pepsi did it so maybe its not so far-fetched.
One more thing...McDonalds "continues to aggressively pursue bold new initiatives in the areas of music, sports, fashion and entertainment..."
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but shouldn't McDonalds concentrate on making decent food before they get carried away with music and fashion? Maybe if they scrapped the wafer-thin burgers more people would go there.
well, it seemed like a good idea, then Apple was worried they'd get sued for making people fat.
All your database are belong to us
Everyone should have listened to this guy http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84948&ci d=7409586
"A swing and a miss for New York Post"
Well Slashdot didn't even swing. Then again, it has no real journalists, so it can't hope to try to actually verify information before copying it from other news sources.
My guess, especially given the offical reply from McD, is that they are planning something like this, just not with Apple. I wouldn't be suprised to hear that they'll be giving away 1 Billion MusicMatch or Napster songs.
The incremental cost to give away the songs is negligible.. it's digital.
IT works for both companies: Think of the extra exposure it would give itunes.... McDonalds is HUGE.
If MCDonalds does it... everyone on earth will hear about Itunes, and inquire as to what it is, etc.
Every time a person says a thing like that, I eat another defenseless, processed animal.
Hey, I don't know where you heard about McDonalds dealin in iTunes, but here - today - in Raleigh, NC, McDonalds opened a McCafe, an alternative to Starbucks for those who want fancy coffees, pastries, and deli sandwiches. Oh, and the whole place is wifi-enabled for free to internet surfing or just small computer errands.
It sounded pretty plausible, even if the cost was roughly 50% more than McDonald's usual yearly advertising expenditures.
I can't figure out whether the editor was being sarcastic, suggesting that it *wasn't* plausible, or if he was being serious, to suggest that such a huge expenditure was plausible.
Perhaps the sheer size of the number he quotes should (*if* it's correct) answer my own question, but I don't know if I'm willing to give these editors that much credit...
Any company you deal with has employees that murder animals all the time, so really you can't escape the fact that most of the people you depend on eat meat. It's a fact of life, things eat one another.
Also look at this hilarious picture.
not every song is going to be redeemed so it doesn't make any sense that they would pay for the songs that don't get bought.
I bet they try and tie it into the gift certs somehow, so that they get auto created upon redemption and McDonald's only charged for what is used.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
as great as most people think of the ipod, I can guarantee that it doesn't have a taste modifying feature.
I would take 40 gigs of songs (hmm, good ones, so really, around 15 megs), yes, but not with 40 pounds of grease.
And in other news, man won $1 bill worth of songs stuck inside a local McDonalds.
WiFi alone? Eh.
WiFi and free iTunes? Now there's something.
Of course, who wants to bring their computer into a greasy McDonald's and get Secret Sauce all over it while surfing the 'Net. Ew... forget I went there!
Starbucks. Those guys would do well with an iTunes promo. They've already rolled out the WiFi part of the equation.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I think this is quite possibly the dumbest post I have ever read on /. I am now more stupid having read it.
While I agree that the the $1 Billion figure is probably wishful thinking on the Post's part, I will say that this deal does strike me as VERY do-able. McD has given away music CDs for years during various promotions, as have other fast-food chains. I can see music giveaways in digital form taking hold very quickly.
Here is an example: Lets say the real deal is $100 Million (just like the Pepsi deal so it is not out of the realm of possibility). McD now has a block of songs that it can do whatever it wants with. If McD has a promotion where they would normally be giving away copies of a CD, they could replace it with a free download of the album from the iTMS. Apple could restrict the redemption so that only the designated album can be downloaded (making success/failure analysis quite easy).
If the promo succeeds, everyone is happy. However, if the promo fails (cuz the music sucks, for example), they would normally have piles of CDs that would just get trashed. Money wasted on production, storage, transportation, and destruction/recycling. With iTMS, they can just keep the unused downloads and repurpose them for a future event, such as a prize in the Monopoly game they run every so often.
In the end, McD has only paid for what it used. Very economical.
Isn't the NY Post one of the least respected papers in the US? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Murdochs newspapers were nothing but trash. You could probbably say they're just below slashdot in the reliability of articles which appear in them ;).
AccountKiller
"roughly 50% more than McDonald's usual yearly advertising expenditures" LOL, I think Apple would cut them deal if they purchased 1B at once, dont you think ;)
either that or they just traded goods, 1B iTunes for 1B hambugers for Apples fat slobby technoweenies, flames to full throttle Capitan...
I haven't eaten at McDonald's for two and a half months. I stopped eating there after I quit working there. If this iTunes deal came to McDonald's, I would not only start eating there again, but I'd put up with insults from my friends for being a McBitch and work there again.
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
A moments thought would have told anyone with common sense that no company is going to give away one billion dollars worth of free music. In fact, what company would buy one billion of anything and not expect a substantial discount?
In all fairness, it must be noted that when I bought the tabloid, the NY Post vendor said, "Would you like lies with that?"
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
It's goatse.
Unfortunately, while a billion dollars to us mortals may seem like a significant amount of money, I don't think that this warrents a seperate story, and not just an update to the previous one.
Also, I'd like to be the first to surface the rumor of Uncle Steve releasing a 1 terabyte iPod to coincide with the announcement of this McDonalds promotion; so you CAN hold all billion songs....
You just put two very ugly images in my mind. My Wallstreet PowerBook, and my Thinkpad 600E, both slimed. With Filet-O-Fish tartar sauce, actually, if it was IRL. This reminds me why this is such a bad idea.
Starbucks. Those guys would do well with an iTunes promo. They've already rolled out the WiFi part of the equation.
Then again, coffee spillage has always been a hazard when surfing at your local Wired coffeehouse. Venti Frappucino Mocha...all over your brand spanking new G4 iBook. [shudder]
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
A swing and a miss for the New York Post.
Now that's a big surprise.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Storage space..... there wouldn't be 1 billion songs sitting somewhere only deleted when someone downloaded it..hello??? There are only 400,000 songs on iTunes store...gosh if last week 1 million were sold there must be multiple copies of each song just wasting space.... and 1 million copies of iTunes were downloaded..that means there were 1 million copies made on apple's servers........
$1 billion seems out of line. McDonald's only is giving away $55,283,390 worth of Best Buy money, not all of which will be turned in undoubtably, in the current Monopoly Best Chance Game promotion. $54,983,390 of that will be in the form of 54,983,390 $1 pieces.
When you add it all up, there's only 55,000,000 Best Buy pieces in cirulation... and that's from a pretty full tilt campaign by McDs standards. Therefore, I think that's the reasonable cap on how many songs total McDs could give away if such a promotion happens.
Before I wet myself.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
1) The statement was a non-statement. They said they have nothing to announce. Period.
2) MacRumors.com confirms that it is happening.
Nice try, but too bad it was the Post, not the Times. Now go back to watching Fox News, where you can be assured that they are always wrong. Not that you would notice...
fuck you.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
or rumoured to be on, definitely, probably, unsubstaiatedly ?
This deal was going to be worth $1 billion... ... so how much did gates pay, and exactly whom* did he pay off, in order to see it scuttled?
*Someone at mcdonalds, to be sure. But WHO exactly? The company itself? Or a particular person wielding power? Who EXACTLY got those thirty pieces of silver?
...the thing to ponder is: Could it have been? I don't think so. Apple has already made its deal with Pepsi, but McDonald's has never served Pepsi products. (Not that I know of, anyway.) Perhaps that dynamic had something to do with it, given that it's McDonalds that is doing the denying.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
'In a dawn raid on McDonaldstown by the RIAA, fictional corporate character Hamburgler was placed under arrest for downloading a number of copyrighted songs. Currently languishing in federal 'pound me in the ass' psison, Hamburglar was reported to have said in response to the allegations 'Robble robble. Robble robble robble robble robble. Robble!' No court date has yet been set.'
Rumor = Nothing signed. They have to post something to all those inquiring due to the article least it appear on the evening news before anything is signed. MickyD's obvously would not pay the full retail price at that volume. More like 30 to 60 cents depending on the actual number of redemptions. And if people get excited over it the reputations of MidckyD's could be tarnished if the deal doesn't go through. The deal could be spoiled if apple wanted more per song due to MickyD's being over a barrel. Plus they wouldn't want to advertize it so early because people would lose some interest by the time the promotion actually came around.
BTW, if anyone wants a real hamburger try the double cheeseburger at Jody Maroni's if your lucky enough to have one in your area. The owner would be better titled the "Burger King" rather than the "Saussage King".
i guess that means i wont be getting a free ipod with every happy meal i buy :(
I for one am grateful to all of our silly and irresponsible news agencies for picking up the story so quickly.
I don't want fries with that. Shame it would of been cool to get a Big Mac and itunes
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
they can pretend all they want/need to. the the eyecon0meter kode is unbreakable, & wwworks on several (more than 3) dimensions, & is not subject to whoreabully infactdead ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys/manipulation.
for example, from a previously PostBlocked(tm) mynuts won postIE:
corepirate nazis fear pateNTdead eyecon0meter?
talk about pressure? those fauxking foulcurrs on wall street of deceit/capitollist hill, are having a whoreabull time attempting to hide the news (buy use of phonIE scriptdead ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys) of their felonious payper liesense billyonerrors' latest softwar gangster hostage taking attempts, &/or the adolescent dictator megalomania of the georgewellian fuddites/walking dead perpetraitors of the greed/fear/ego based life0cide against humankind.
for each of the creators' innocents harmed, there is a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US, as the aforementioned walking dead will not be available to make reparations, when the big flash occurs.
lookout bullow. the lights are coming up now.
mynuts won: va lairIE/robbIE's whoreabull infactdead PostBlock(tm) devise, fails again&again.
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down (like with fuddles' hobbyist bouNTy hunter softwar gangster witchhunt 'system'). If you think this is unfair, we don't care. tell 'em robbIE? it's ALL about the monIE?
Good thinking. It sure fooled me, even though I never cared in the first place.
Don't give Apple any more bright ideas...
McDonalds sucks..
even if they *did* do the deal for the music, i would not frequent McD's..
especially with the new advertising campaign..
i find it demeaning and offensive..
and McD's food sucks.. it's the worst in the fast food industry..
a 3 gallon container of greasy, oversalted fries.. mmmmmmmm good..
it's ghastly, horrible food..
that goes good with all the plastic crap from WalMart..
i hate microsoft.
Some time ago, the news media began reporting that McDonald's was to going to provide wireless access in their restauraunts. That service, according to McDonald's itself, would in some places be for pay.
McDonald's giveaway will promote its for-pay WiFi access. iTMS is the market leader of downloaded music with, according to a 5 November analyst conference call held by Apple, over 80% market share. McDonald's will be able to "give away" US $0.99 tracks to, in some cases, sell US $2.99/day WiFi access.
I wonder if some of those Happy Meal freebies will include a day's worth of free WiFi.
blog
I want to point out that this article came from the NEW YORK POST.
_ ___
The Enquirer sometimes has more accurate stories than them.
__________________________________________
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
implies the image in grandparent post is less harmful/disgusting than it actually is
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
Suppose someone who didn't see _this_ article goes to mcdonalds instead of burger king?
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
According to Macrumors.com they have received confirmation that McDonald's is planning an iTunes give away. Traditionally, Macrumors has been very accurate in their Apple related rumors.
But, could they also bring back fried apple pies? Those "baked" doo dads just don't cut it.
I love having iTunes on my Windoze box, too!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
That's kind of redundant, isn't it?
Actually, it's true.
They stated there are no announcements to be made at this time, the same as many other companies who have accidently let the cat out of the bag on Apple's behalf have. It will happen.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Quoting from the Post is like repeating a conversation overheard in a toilet.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"The Post has learned?" "according to sources familiar"? Now that's some journalistic integrity. In fact, they went so far as to say: How were they able to get any information regarding a deal between these two companies when they didn't even talk to anyone IN these two companies?
Maybe Napster is trying to work a deal with McDs? I mean, Apple hasn't totally cornered the market yet - maybe some of the other companies that scrambled to copy the iTMS are scrambling to copy the promotional deal, only by a factor of ten.
Never pet a burning dog.
I saw this on CNN last night, are you sure its not true??
dude, i didnt mean lack of storage on mcdonald's part, i mean the winner would be forced to buy like a freakin' hundred terabytes to hold all their winnings.
~Chris Hammond
So the individual downloader's hard drives holding the 1 billion songs? btw.. I dont think the RIAA would ever discount....ok maybe 2 cents off the 65 the get.