Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Media (Apple) Media Businesses Music Apple

Apple's 500 Million Songs 418

Posted by CowboyNeal from the drumming-up-business dept.
Paul H. writes "Apple is giving away an iPod Mini and a 50-song gift card to whomever purchases every 100,000th song on iTunes, until they reach 500 million downloads. The person who downloads the 500 millionth song wins 10 free iPods, a gold 10,000-song gift card, and 10 additional 50-song gift cards for the iPods. To top it off, the winner gets 4 first row Coldplay tickets with back-stage passes."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Apple's 500 Million Songs More

Apple's 500 Million Songs

Comments Filter:

  • Finally... (Score:2, Funny)

    by pLnCrZy ( 583109 )
    A use for all those free songs I had saved up from Mountain Dew bottles!

    • Re:Finally... (Score:3, Informative)

      by The Lynxpro ( 657990 )
      "A use for all those free songs I had saved up from Mountain Dew bottles!"

      I hope you cashed in your credits and downloaded those songs already because if not, they expired.

      There's a new promotion on 40oz (or is it 33oz?) Slurpee cups at 7Eleven until the end of this month. Have at it.

    • Re:Finally... (Score:2, Informative)

      by johndierks ( 784521 )
      Songs purchased using freebie codes are not eligible, as per the rules.

  • 10 free ipods???? (Score:3)

    by pg110404 ( 836120 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:09PM (#13008445)
    isn't one enough?

    I'd gladly trade in the extra 9 for more songs.
    • I'd gladly trade in the extra 9 for more songs.

      or a Mac.
    • just pawn em on ebay, 100% profit which you can pump into songs, or whatever you want.

    • Re:10 free ipods???? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Crudely_Indecent ( 739699 ) * on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:12PM (#13008504) Journal
      10 iPods make you 10 times as cool.......which is, of course, why I need so desperately to win.

      I HAVEN'T HAD A DATE IN 6 MONTHS!
    • This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer is debating between taking $20 or a bag of peanuts. His brain tells him he can buy plenty of peanuts for $20, and he concurs. However, I think the $20 bill gets blown away by wind or something. Anyways, just sell the 9 iPods and buy something like 2700 songs. I doubt they'd give you that many.
    • Haha, 10,000 Free songs in addition to the 10 iPods isn't enough songs for you?
    • "isn't one enough? I'd gladly trade in the extra 9 for more songs."

      For more songs? Over, say, a free iBook?

      The last time I checked, questions of legality and morality aside, you can download songs from P2P. You cannot, however, download a free iBook from P2P.

  • Hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by xMilkmanDanx ( 866344 )
    Cynical side of me sees attempt to drum up more sales.

    Realistic side... sees attempt to drum up more sales.
    • Cynical side of me sees attempt to drum up more sales.
      Realistic side... sees attempt to drum up more sales.

      That's the problem with commerical business, just about every "promotion" like this Apple iPod contest is just another way to increase sales or to increase brand recogntion. There really is no free lunch in the commerical marketplace. :(

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

      by Osiris Ani ( 230116 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:23PM (#13008623)
      Imagine that... a business attempting to do business.

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

      by RichardX ( 457979 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:16PM (#13009654) Homepage
      Cynical side of me sees attempt to drum up more sales.

      Realistic side... sees attempt to drum up more sales.

      That's because you're outside of the Jobs Reality Distortion Field(tm). If you were inside it (where you're *SUPPOSED* to be) you would in fact see this for what it really is - a selfless attempt by Apple to bring about world peace.

      Come. Join is. Everything is happy here. And made of white plastic - which is a bonus.

  • Free Entries (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NickCatal ( 865805 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:09PM (#13008450)
    Find a song, do the "tell a friend" feature and type in "itunes500@apple.com" as the friend to email. Each time you do it, it is an entry. -Nick [nickcatalano.com]
  • Apple wants us to think getting 10,000 songs for free is worth untold millions of dollars but the marginal cost to apple, or the record companies is near $0.00.

    Just something to remember. I'd rather win something tangible like a house.

    • Re:$0 marginal cost (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Burning1 ( 204959 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:11PM (#13008489) Homepage
      Just because something is free doesn't mean that it's valueless.
      • You're right, but 10,000 itunes songs has near zero value for me. I can't play them on my computer (no iTunes). I can't play them on my Rio Karma. I could give them to my girlfriend, but she works for the music industry and gets her music for free -- she can't remember ever buying a cd. I guess I could give them to my brother for xmas - 10 per year for the next 1000 years. Won't he be happy.
        • Tell you what -- when you win the 10,000 song gift card, give it to me and I'll buy you a pizza. Certainly that has more value to you than the 10,000 iTunes songs, right? And though I don't use iTunes or have an iPod, I suspect that I can probably come up with a use for such a prize, if I try really hard.

        • Re:$0 marginal cost (Score:5, Funny)

          by Shakrai ( 717556 ) * on Thursday July 07, 2005 @07:09PM (#13009099) Journal

          I could give them to my girlfriend, but she works for the music industry and gets her music for free

          The true slashdotter in me doesn't know if I should hate you for sleeping with the enemy or just plain hate you for sleeping with a member of the opposite sex.

          You would have made my life a lot easier if you were sleeping with a male indie-artist who got screwed over by a RIAA company.

    • Re:$0 marginal cost (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BigZaphod ( 12942 )
      The iPods aren't free. Neither are concert tickets. The songs aren't free either, just very cheap from Apple's point of view. They still pay bandwidth fees and likely will have to count them as songs sold for royalty purposes.

      Besides, in things like this it isn't the value of the prize to the company that is important, it is the value of the prize to the winner or game-players that matters. Clearly you don't care and therefore you are not their target audience with this event.

    • Re:$0 marginal cost (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:22PM (#13008605) Homepage Journal
      Well, sure you'd rather win something worth $150k than $9,900, which is what 10,000 songs costs. They're not claiming it's worth untold millions.

      The marginal cost to Apple may be small, but 10,000 songs are still 10,000 songs, and they're worth something to you, assuming you listen to music. The music's pretty tangible.

      The marginal cost may be zero, but the amortized cost is not. They can't give you the next song without having paid for the servers, the software, the music studios, the advertising, etc.

      If your goal is not so much to have stuff as to make make sure you're socking it to the guys giving you the prize, well, I'm sure Apple is very sorry. If you write to jobs@apple.com, he'll send you a gift certificate to be redeemed for a free iTunes song ($.99 processing fee applies.)

      (And just for reference, contests with a house as a prize rarely actually give away a house. If you read the rules closely, you'll find that you can take cash instead. Nearly everybody takes the cash.)

    • IRS is the real winner (Score:4, Insightful)

      by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:25PM (#13008641) Homepage
      Everyone seems to be forgetting that this prize package will be considered income to the winner's federal government. I'm an ignorent american, so I can't speak for other countires, but I'm fairly sure that if an american wins, Apple will file the proper paperwork with the IRS... pretty soon the $9900+iPods+concert trip ~= $15000 "free" prize package is going to cost the "winner" almost $5000 in income taxes.

      If I won, I would have to forefit the prize because there is NO WAY I could afford to pay the taxes on it.

      Now, if Apple were to be giving away a car, I could at least borrow money to pay the taxes, then sell the car to pay off the loan, and keep the balance for myself. There's not much I can do with $9900 of "free" music.

      Bastards. I hope this leads to an iTunes boycott.
    • Well, you'll save hours in downloading time.

  • What do you do with ten iPods? (Score:4, Funny)

    by double-oh three ( 688874 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:09PM (#13008454)
    1. Gift them
    2. Beowulf cluster
    3. ...
    4. Profit!?

    Seriously though, you'd run out of people you felt close enough to to give them an iPod before you ran out.

    And I think 10,500 songs counts as a lifetime supply.
    • Sell them on eBay.

      Stain them with vague images that look sort of like the Virgin Mary, and sell the on eBay for 10 times as much.
    • That's only three weeks of music, unless you buy classical. :P
      • iTunes Music Store also sells audiobooks, but sadly not for 99-cents per "song." I wonder if the gift cards are good for audiobooks.
    • If people knew you had 9 iPods to give away, I'm sure they'll be much friendlier to you.

      If you had 10,500 free songs, would you pick and choose a song at a time? Or say 'screw it' and buy the entire album?

      I don't know about 10,500 songs being a lifetime supply. Using a rough estimate of 10 songs per CD, I know 3 people who own that many songs. Some people are just indescriminant when they buy music.

      Listening to all the songs though, that might take a lifetime.

      • First, repeats:

        Assuming 3-minute songs, the first song has zero probability of repeating. The second has a 1/10,500 (i.e., 1-10,499/10,500) probability of repeating. The third has a 1-(10,499/10,500 * 10,498/10,499) unioned with the previous chance, and so on. With a random shuffle, statistically you'd get your first repeat around song 120, which would be 6 days into playing it.

        What about how long you have to listen to have heard *every* song on a truly random play? The expected length of time to play
  • To anybody thinking about buying a whole bunch of iTunes to try and win this prize, give it up, you probably don't have an iChance in iHell. /sigh
  • I'm in 92426 charge and 92427 I keep losing 924.... count, crap!! 1, 2
  • Apple isn't so stupid afterall, now they're making people buy songs for no reason just for a chance to win an iPod or the grand prize. Sound a little like Willy Wonka to me...

  • Let's slashdot the itunes servers! (Score:5, Funny)

    by tktk ( 540564 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:11PM (#13008486)
    Hey, just for fun, everyone go buy one song right now. That'll burn the iTunes music servers and the credit card verification system to the ground.

    Sincerely,

    Jeve Stobs.

  • Meanwhile... (Score:5, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) * on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:12PM (#13008493)
    The RIAA will be handing out lawsuits for every 100,000th download on a p2p network, leading up to the public beheading of the person who download the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000th song.

  • easily expoitable (Score:5, Funny)

    by i_should_be_working ( 720372 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:12PM (#13008500)
    much like the bottle caps you could see the bottoms of before buying, this scheme has an obvious flaw.

    Just buy 100,000 songs and hey, free ipod!
    • Just buy 100,000 songs and hey, free ipod!

      That would work if there were 100,000 songs I liked. I might only have something 10,000 I liked, so why should I blow about 90 grand on crap I don't like?

      I suppose I could always buy 10 separate copies of the 10,000 I did like. But then I'd need those 10 ipods, not the 1 I'd otherwise get.
  • this calculates to... pinky ready... one MILLION dollars!

  • Gimme the Dual G5! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tmoore ( 232528 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:13PM (#13008511) Homepage
    The person who downloads the 500 millionth song wins 10 free iPods, a gold 10,000-song gift card, and 10 additional 50-song gift cards for the iPods. To top it off, the winner gets 4 first row Coldplay tickets with back-stage passes.

    Why not give away a nice Dual G5 system with the 30 inch cinema display instead of 10 iPods. What would you do with 10 iPods anyway? I mean 1 or 2 iPod's would be nice but 10??

  • Apples bobbing in the chocolate river (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:13PM (#13008514) Homepage Journal
    >The person who downloads the 500 millionth song wins 10 free iPods, a gold 10,000-song gift card...

    ...and gets to visit the iPod factory run by the mysterious Steve Wonka?

  • Heh...Good luck, Apple. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pantero Blanco ( 792776 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:14PM (#13008517)
    We already know of a way to get 10,000 free songs. Your gimmicks ain't flyin'.

  • Taxes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:15PM (#13008531)
    Not sure I'd want to win this. You get what "$10K" worth of music, $3K worth of ipods, probably a grand for the concert stuff. Boom - you owe the IRS 20% of $14000.

    • Re:Taxes? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by scovetta ( 632629 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:49PM (#13008914) Homepage
      Are 10,000 songs automagically worth $10k? Seriously, how is that determined? If Starbucks gives me a free lifetime supply of coffee, do I owe them 20% of $infinity?

      • Re:Taxes? (Score:3, Funny)

        by Buck2 ( 50253 )
        yeah, duh

        It's somewhere on your 1040, I think line 47 or so, ah, here:

        Cash/coffee prizes/winnings (if lifetime winnings submit form Z-27 or enter $1e14, $1e14-20 if filing jointly):

        I think 1e14 is as high as the IRS' calculators can go.

  • Watch out Apple... (Score:3, Funny)

    by inkdesign ( 7389 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:16PM (#13008541)
    The RIAA is sure to notice any company that gives away 10,500 songs...
    ;0]

  • iTunes API (Score:5, Funny)

    by Krankheit ( 830769 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:18PM (#13008562)
    iTunes API comprehensive?
    while (totaldownloads != 500000)
    {
    download_random_song(Mother_in_Law_Creditcard_Data _Structure);
    totaldownloads++;
    printf("Now I can havea beowulf cluster of iPods!\n");
    }

  • Thanks for the free advertising! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Panaphonix ( 853996 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:19PM (#13008580) Journal
    Let's see how much this promotion would cost Apple:

    500 million / 100,000 songs = 500 winners
    500 winners * (50 songs * $0.80 per song + $100 per iPod mini) = $70,000
    Gold gift card = $8,000
    10 iPods = $1,000
    Coldplay tickets = $0 cuz Coldplay is teh suck.

    Total cost = $79,000, considerably less than a single 30-second prime time spot.

    So Apple thanks you for the free advertising on this highly read online forum!

  • I don't care... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:27PM (#13008662)
    I never win anything anyway. Hell, I can't even get MOD points and look how they give those away.

  • Come on, its enough. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Post ( 113251 )
    Admittedly, the iPod is a sweet little audio player with a clever store concept behind it.

    But putting this kind of story on /. is just free advertising for Steve & Co. We are not talking about new products or services here, folks. We are talking about shopping at SteveWorld to earn a few bonus points should we be so lucky to be counted as customer # 490000.

    There are dozens of great (DRM-free) audio players out there. I cannot see why we should high-five every little stunt from Apple's marketing depart

  • Taxes? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RickPartin ( 892479 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @06:33PM (#13008753) Homepage
    If I win the free 10,000 songs that works out to roughly a $10,000 value. Do I have to pay taxes on it?
  • ..and marketing for apple

  • ugh (Score:2)

    by kuzb ( 724081 )
    I didn't know slashdot had become a part of Apple's marketing division.
  • I'd consider that more of a punishment if I had to sit through a Coldplay concert. Now if I could sell the tickets and passes that would be great. The rest of the prizes sound nice though.
  • well, I suppose you could always find someone willing to trade you those tickets for a vinyl ipod carrying case or something :D

  • Enter FREE online : No Purchase Necessary. (Score:5, Informative)

    by ayeco ( 301053 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @07:13PM (#13009141)
    NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. - but you still need itunes .

    How To Enter. You will automatically be entered into the Promotion by: 1) downloading a song from iTunes (any free downloads will be deemed an ineligible entry); or 2) a free alternative means of sending an e-mail to Apple at itunes500@apple.com via the iTunes "Tell a Friend" feature (a song download or Tell a Friend e-mail will be deemed an "Entry(ies)"). The "Tell a Friend" feature can be easily accessed at iTunes by selecting a song, and clicking the "Tell a Friend" link that is displayed for that song. One Entry will be automatically submitted for each song downloaded or Tell a Friend e-mail sent. The Promotion begins following the downloading of the 480,000,000th iTunes song, and ends with the downloading of the 500 millionth Entry ("End Date"). Only Entries submitted in this time period will be accepted.

  • Predictor (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ChrisDolan ( 24101 ) <chris+slashdot.chrisdolan@net> on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:51PM (#13009888) Homepage
    I wrote a simple Perl program that extrapolates when each of the upcoming 100,000 songs will be purchased. It's probably quite wrong, but it was fun to write. I posted the code and the results in my blog [chrisdolan.net]. To sum up, my program predicts number 500 million will be at Fri Jul 15 05:09:29 2005 CDT (US/Central time)

  • USA sure has expanded lately! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Penguin ( 4919 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @05:30AM (#13012017) Homepage
    4. 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., Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.

    Wow, didn't know Austria, Belgium, Canada etc. were included in the 50 United States!

Slashdot Top Deals

BLISS is ignorance.

Close