07/12/2004, 5:55am, EDT
Monday, July 12th
Apple iTunes Music Store hits 100 million song mark
Apple launched its 100 million song promotion on July 1st and offered just over 5 million songs for download in in July, a rate of just over 2.5 million songs each week. Apple had initially hoped to distribute 100 million songs within the first 12 months of the launch of the iTunes Music Store, but following Apple's 50 million song mark in March 2004 made, Steve Jobs admitted that Apple would fall short of that mark. In addition, it also became clear that the redemption rate in the Pepsi/iTunes promotion of 100 million free songs would fall well short of expectations. In April 2004, on the first anniversary of the iTunes music store, Apple announced the latest version of the iTunes Music Store and said that its industry-leading service had had more than 70 million songs downloaded--including the 5 million free songs that that were given away as part of the Pepsi/iTunes promotion.
On its anniversary, Apple gave away free song downloads each day for eight days. Apple continued to the promotion, offering free songs each week as a "risk free" way to introduce to new users to the service. Today's announcement of the 100 million song mark likely includes these song as part of the tally.
Since the July promo announcement, several developers have developed software and charts for monitoring iTunes' download rate, which many readers used to help increase their own chances to win one of the several prizes being offered by Apple. Readers, however, report that they were unable to access the store as the store approached 100 million songs, frustrating many readers attempting to purchase music (and become the grand prize winner).
"Last night I tried to access the iTunes Music store as the 100,000,000 song mark approached--only I was unable to connect," noted Dennis Callahan. "I tried for about 10 minutes to view my existing shopping cart--all to no avail. Seems this type of demand should have been anticipated and dealt with before it became an issue to those of us who would have enjoyed the possibility of winning."
Several readers also note that the download rate has dropped off dramatically since the end of the promotion.
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I came back to Apple's home page and it was a specific number again! It was at 99,8xx,xxx so I went back to iTMS to find another album I wanted, and the whole computer locked up as I was accessing my shopping cart. As in, OS 9-style locked up, as in, I couldn't switch apps or force-quit or do anything at all. On another computer, I went to Apple's home page and saw that the count was now at 100,014,xxx. Dang. Wouldn't it figure that the one time OS X has completely locked up on me was at the exact moment the grand prize was being given away?
Frequent flier miles and similar promotions are entirely irrelevant. Instead of one random person winning merchandise or money, anyone who joins a frequent-flier program (or enters a promotion) is given what is effectively a discount. It's perfectly legal to give a discount to people for being loyal customers.
I'm sure those who got a prize think it's great.
I'm not saying that we should always accept everything a company does but sometimes people just have to find a spin or cynical statement about every damn thing.
They got their 100 mil number, it's a milestone (can't argue that) so just suck it up and move on.
Oh, one would think that for a short time after the promotion the download rate would drop somewhat, as people tend to purchase more than usual during a promotion, and then reduce their purchases afterward to average out the costs (same goes with lotteries, after a big jackpot winner, the next one usually has little play on it because people already spent all their money).