James Delahunty
8 Jul 2005 13:34
Apple's iTunes music store is soon to once again show just how much it dominates the market for online legal music downloading when it reaches half a billion downloads. To celebrate the company has decided to give something back to at least a few of its downloaders. Prizes will be given to the purchaser of every 100,000th song until the 500,000,000 download target is reached.
The prize includes an iPod mini and a 50-song gift card. The colour of the iPod and the songs downloaded using the gift card is completely up to the winner. However, the real prize Apple wants to give away will be to the purchaser of the 500,000,000th downloaded song.
That lucky customer will receive not one... but 10 iPods for himself/herself. The models of the iPods (iPod mini, iPod Shuffle, U2 special edition iPod or just a regular iPod) and colours are completely up to the winner. He/she will also receive a gold 10,000-song gift card for iTunes, 10 additional 50-song gift cards to go with those iPods and a trip for him/her and three guests to see Coldplay on their current tour with front row seats and back-stage passes.
While there is a "download counter" on the iTunes page right now, it would be near impossible for a user to use it to sync a purchase of a song with 500,000,000 because the number is increasing so fast. Apple however will be hoping that users will excessively purchase songs to come in with a chance of winning something.
Source:
Apple.com