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Early Monday morning Apple announced that its iTunes Music Store has reached the 100 million song mark-- after launching a 'Countdown to 100 Million Song' promotion earlier this month. The milestone, a first for the online music industry, sets the standard for other music services, as Apple reached the mark only 15 months after launching the service in April 2003. Kevin Britten (of Hays, Kansas), who downloaded Somersault (Dangermouse remix) by Zero7, will receive a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, and a gift certificate for 10,000 iTunes songs. In addition, Apple also awarded 50 special 20GB iPods — one to the purchaser of each 100,000th song downloaded between 95 million and 100 million songs. Apple said it would post a complete list of winners soon. 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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