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iTunes Sells 500 Millionth Song
TJPile writes "Apple's iTunes Music Store can now say half a billion served. One look at Apple's front page says it all. Sunday, at 2:44PM EST, Amy Greer of Lafayette, Indiana bought Faith Hill's Mississippi Girl to win."
Hasn't anyone patented 'the display of multiple round numbers in celebration of sales achievement' yet? McDonalds should get on that.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
In all likelyhood, Apple would not be able to sell you music that did not have some form of DRM. We should be thankful that at the very least, the Apple DRM is unobtrusive and allows users some flexibility with their music.
The first question that comes to mind is... how many of the downloads were free? I have seen so many ads for free songs (giveaways, contests, promotions, etc) on itunes, napster, etc that I have lost count. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at the paid:free ratio, it could be anything, 1:10, 1:1, 10:1...
How long ago Kazaa passed this mark and if any information was collected from it. I also wonder if information was published about said person and their music taste on a major news site. ;)
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
"One look at Apple's FRONT page says it all." That's http://www.apple.com/ I can't help it if the editors butcher my submissions. I had links to Apple.com, the iTunes Music Store, and the winning song in my submission, but they were cut.
Apple's iTunes Music Store can now say half a billion served. ...Except that you didn't link to their lovely half-a-billion front page, you linked to the store page which they forgot to update since 'over 430,000 '.
For the teeming horders: clicky on the apple in the top left, et voila.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
>All the same, though, knowing that I only have 5 format/reinstalls before my music becomes untouchable isn't good enough.
From the Apple website:
To deauthorize all computers associated with your account:
Click Music Store in the Source list.
If you're not signed in to the store, click the Account button, then enter your account name and password.
Click the Account button again (your ID appears on the button), enter your password, and then click View Account.
In the Account Information window, click Deauthorize All.
...and that's all there is to it.
Just look
at what the prize winning losers were buying!Jessica Simpson? Kelly Clarkson? Brian McKnight?!
Oh the agony...
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What he mentioned deauthorizes ALL computers EVER authorized by iTMS with your account - whether the computers still exist or not.
You can use it once a year.
Since it seems like you only use one computer with your iTunes account, that'll take you back to 5 "reformats"...or just remember to deauthorize before you reformat next time to avoid all this in the future.
...what the headlines would say if the 500 millionth was "Grab the devil by the horns and f**k him up the ass" by Sum41?
LOL
Oh my. This is like Christmas now. Granted, it's like someone taking my Christmas presents - that I bought for myself - and giving them back - but it's better than no presents at all. Thanks!
Now I have to scurry off and burn these CDs to disk and re-rip them. This is entirely too much effort expended on music I legitimately own (license). Yar.
iTMS is not a loss leader. Early on it broke even or had a loss due to one time charges related to startup. In the mean time they have built up a dominating position in market share and mind share. The addition of Podcasts was a brilliant move to get even more people to use the store. Apple is positioning itself for the coming fee based Podcasts. Can you think of a Podcast you would pay $5 a year to listen to? What if Apple collected 1 of those 5 dollars and took care of all the subscription management and payment process.
The songs may be DRMed but its pretty fair DRM - I can make unlimited copies as long as I change the playlist, have legal copies on more than one computer and I can transfer everything to a new computer when I buy one.
The iTMS certainly helps sell iPods but now Apple is getting the reverse benefit. Having sold over 11 million pods in the last 6 months alone, there are a lot of Pod owners out there and by definition they are into music. If each one buys just one song a month over the next year thats over 120 million songs. Show a profit of just $.10 a song and you have $12 million. I still Limewire far more than I get off iTMS but I also have bought way more than one song a month for the last year and so has my wife.
Apple has created a way to earn a very very small fee off something everyone said people wouldn't pay for. They have also used that thing as a way to integrate Apple products into peoples daily lives and added "or a Macintosh" to the list of computer options people think of. Based on last quarters sales numbers, more and more are taking that option. And they make a profit on the service to boot. Apples PR machine is one of the best for NOT plastering how much profit they made off selling songs. They tell analysis that during their financial conference calls not on the front of the store.
Why burn them to disc and rerip them to get rid of the DRM? Run them through jHymn.
...and that's all there is to it.