Slashdot Mirror
1 Billion iTunes Contest
pvt_medic writes "Apple has announced their newest contest for the 1 Billionth iTunes song downloaded. Every 100,000 downloads someone will win an iPod nano and a $100 giftcard, with the grand prize being an iMac, 10 iPod (60GB), and $10,000 credit at iTunes. Looks like business is going well for Apple."
Holy CRAP that's a good prize!
It's a shame the chances of winning will be so, so slim though.
Also, it seems kinda daft. What would one person want with ten 60 gig iPods?
Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
I'm curious, what does one do with ten 60GB iPods? It seems that you keep one for yourself and sell the other 9 on eBay. Maybe give some to your friends? Maybe give an iPod to your senator?
It just seems like ten iPods is a lot for one person and will just end up being given away.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Entrants must be 13 years of age or older, and a legal resident of one of the 50 United States, including Washington, D.C., Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.
However, if your zip code isn't 5 digits long, you probably wont receive the prize!
C'mon Apple, how US-Centric are you?...
----- Concentrate on promoting more than demoting.
Um, no. From the Official Rules:
If you believe the meter running on the above web page, it ran through 1000 songs in 112 seconds. At that rate they give out the 100,000 song prize every 3 hours 6 minutes 40 seconds. However that also means they're 61.425 days away from giving away the grand prize.
Good luck with your taxes in 2007.
We'll be watching.
The IRS
Looks like I didn't read the fine article. Seems the lucky winner does indeed win 10 iPods and $10,000 credit on iTMS.
My other first post is car post.
(1,699 + (10,000*.99) + (10*399)) *.3 (ballpark) = $4,676.7
Will Apple provide low interest financing to the winner so that they can pay for the taxes? Otherwise they probably threw in the extra 9 iPods just to make it more prohibitively expensive & hope that the winner can't claim the prize.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
You can tell that iTunes is being embraced by everyone when the top-selling songs are "Grillz" by Nelly, "Shake That" by Eminem and "L.O.V.E." by Ashlee Simpson.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The entry form uses a visual CAPTCHA, which is not accessible to users with visual impairment such as, say, many iPod Shuffle owners. In jurisdictions with anti-discrimination statutes, this could be considered discrimination or even violate gambling laws because for blind people, a purchase is necessary. Given that the iPod player is an audio device, wouldn't it make sense to include an audio-based alternate confirmation method?
Does anyone know if video downloads count in this contest? Winning the grand prize while downloading the latest episode of Battlestar Galatica would be awesome!
Mathematically challenged much? You also forgot to take into account the fact that Apple don't get to keep that dollar for themselves; the majority goes straight into the pockets of the recording companies.
Well, $10000 should be about right to fill a 60gig iPod. Since iTunes lets you copy music to an unlimited number of iPods that looks like a great eBay opportunity for an unscrupulous winner...
Stuart
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
If the billionth song is a Michael Bolton tune they are skipped and the winner will be the next one.
I sooo need the Hard drive space.
Troll nothing, its the sad truth. Shows exactly what a sad state the 'music' industry is in. I wonder how many wonderful artists are hidden away because they dont fit the tight mold it takes to sell millions these days. Just dont SUCK enough to make the cut. Actually, wherever they are, I hope they stay there.
What's your point? That Apple are wrong to offer a prize at all? Or that you think it's not enough? That they should offer their entire profit margin as prizes?
Remembering the breakdown of money from each song sold, I think Apple only get a few cents per track. At that rate, it's not a bad prize. It's even better for people who are just doing what they do anyway.
Maybe one of those other, competing music stores could offer a better prize for their billion mark.
"I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me."
-- Abe Simpson
So, for every 100,000 downloads (~$100,000.00 gross) they are giving away $50 in hardware and $100 in gift certificates. Wow, that's almost impressive.. wait, no it's not.
Suddenly companies are required to give away a substantial proportion of their earnings in contents?
Not to mention your definition of "gross" is a little off since they only get $0.33/song, the rest going to the labels. Then they pay for bandwidth, maintenance, managers, etc. So how much "profit" they are making is up for question, not that it makes the prize worth 50% of their earnings or anything.
My point is that the summary is about worthless. That is all.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
What?! Could you speak up a little bit? I'm having a little trouble hearing you over all the noise this cash is making.
Sincerely,
Steve Jobs
Fair enough.
hey should just hold these kind of contests all the time.
Dilution.
I have a shitty sig!
That's why I said these *kind* of contests. Yes, they would get diluted, but they would also transform iTunes into a kind of online lottery, as well as a music source, which would add to its lasting image as a worthwhile place to shop for music.
games journalism blog
Otherwise they probably threw in the extra 9 iPods just to make it more prohibitively expensive & hope that the winner can't claim the prize.
Maybe they threw in the extra 9 iPods so you could sell them on eBay to pay the taxes?
Or maybe they don't actually care either way.
That's right, because every $.99 is pure profit for apple
I can't believe OP missed (IMO) the coolest part of the grand prize...
Apple will create a full-ride scholarship in your name to a world-renowned music school.
Classy.
There's an interesting extra part to the Grand Prize, which isn't listed on the main page:
In addition, a scholarship will be created by Apple in the name of the Grand Prize winner to a world renowned music institution to be selected by Apple. The scholarship recipient shall receive four (4) years of tuition to a university-level program at the music department of the selected institution. The Grand Prize winner shall not be eligible to receive the scholarship or participate in determining the scholarship recipient. The scholarship shall have no monetary value to the Grand Prize winner. -- Official Rules
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
It just seems like ten iPods is a lot for one person and will just end up being given away. What better way to get 9 more people hooked on buying iTunes downloads (and by extension other Apple products)?
My point was not to rag on Apple, but to rag on the summary writer and editor. The summary was factually incorrect and made it sound like this give away was a sign of Apple's financial strength.
I don't mind taking the ocasional troll rating, but atleast let people understand what I was trolling!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Damages = prize * probability of payout.
Punitive damages, especially in the case of a tort that has a corresponding crime such as unauthorized gambling, can be much greater than actual damages.
Steve - come on - are you still peaved about this?
Quoth the modded-down AC (sadly, I think it's mildly amusing): "There's no real incentive to use iTunes, in any case, if you're not running Windows or a Mac, and even less so if you don't have an iPod."
Well, um, no. In other news, there is very little incentive to buy fuel if you don't own a car to put it in, barely a point to buying DVDs without a player of some kind, and deaf people don't buy very many CDs.
Quite what this insight has to offer the debate, I'm not sure, however.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
You must be new here, when have mods understood what they are modding?
Jonathanjk.com
How wonderful would it be for the billionth sale to be to someone using Sharp Musique instead of itunes. Would Apple exclude them as the winner for not using the "official" client? Could they?
Apperantly the "sosumi" thing is a running joke over at Apple, it goes back to 1991, when the Beatles were suing Apple Computer. More info (as always) at WikiPedia
Thankfully I live in a country with sane tax laws around contest winnings, which are 100% tax free.
Eligibility. In order to be eligible, entrants must be 13 years of age or older, and a legal resident of one of the 50 United States, including Washington, D.C., Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.
no cause Apple only gets about 15 cents to every dollar if Im not mistaken while the record company/artist gets the rest.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Lets not forget the fact that it costs them 9 out of the 15 cents they make to pay for the storage of the songs and the bandwidth to send you the songs. Oh yeah, and lets also not forget everyone they have to pay to make this server work (coders, network engineers, PR people, customer service). They make something like 2-3% on songs. On a .99 cent song, thats 2 pennies.
You had a typo there. It should have read:
no cause Apple only gets about 15 cents to every dollar if Im not mistaken while the record company/RIAA gets the rest.
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
I created a Firefox Greasemonkey user script that makes it dramatically easier to submit entries to this contest. I explain how to install and use it in Read my blog
Mayhaps, but it seems wrong to even take gross into consideration. Suppose I have a company that sells cars, making only $1 off each car sold. The cars still COST ME $14,999, but I sell them for $15,000 even. Then I announce a contest where every 100,000 cars I sell I give away $75,000. Following the logic of using "gross" to calculate the "sacrifice" or "generosity" factor, I made $1.5billion (gross)!! $75,000 isn't a lot compared to $1.5billion (it's about 5%).
However, if you use "net", then I've only made $100,000, so giving away $75,000 is actually 75%!
So this is an extreme case, but you get the idea. Of course I was off on my saying the problem was with the definition; certainly it wasn't. The other problem is we don't know Apple's net income from an iTunes sale, but we do know it is about $0.33 after the record company takes their fair share. So factor in network, advertising, etc and it seems like they are not making a whole lot.
But then you have to remember they indirectly sell iPods (and even Macs) by the iTunes store, because it gains them mindshare, etc etc. In the end it's not easy to calculate it's total value to them, I guess, but using the gross is a bad idea.
So that's like, only $200,000,000. Poor bastards, they must be starving ;-)
Great script, and me with no mod points...
Thanks for the into to greasemonkey
It is if they get their mp3's from the same place I do.
I love retorts with flawed math and/or logic...
I don't really get it. I mean, the downloads you buy up to the billionth are paying for the "free iPod" so I think it's just a big conspiracy to make more money for Apple.
To win an iPod or the Grand Prize for the billionth song, you must buy a song each time the counter turns 100,000. The problem is: you can't rely on Apple's counter. It doesn't display the real-time count, it makes a projection based on a snapshot of the sales data over a period of 5 minutes, and that projection is always underestimated so that the counter doesn't go up and down each time the new data is released. With their method, it always goes up - but it's not accurate.
The Apple counter also relies on a 100ms timer to keep running, but if your machine is blocked doing something (like dragging a scrollbar in your browser or whatever), it stops and loses count.
I quickly fixed that over the weekend. Here is my page:
http://www.billiontunescounter.com/
It ain't pretty but so far today, it works. That should bring you one step closer to the 10 iPods and the $10,000 gift certificate. Good luck!