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McDonald's Billion-Song iTunes Giveaway
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Nov 06, 2003 01:49 PM
from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.
from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.
camperslo writes "The New York Post online
has this story.
"Less than a month after Pepsi announced a blockbuster deal to give away 100 million downloads from Apple's iTunes music service to its customers, McDonald's is close to a announcing a much bigger deal"." No matter what you think of iTunes, this is tremendous publicity for music on demand services in general. If the public gets a taste for it, this could be the beginning of the end for the audio CD.
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McDonald's Billion-Song iTunes Giveaway
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Re:What better way to..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What better way to..... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Well considering that the deal between Apple and Pepsi [apple.com] allow you to use the credit on any song you want, I am betting that the McDonalds deal is going to be similar.
Why spread FUD? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday December 05 2003, @04:54PM)
The previous arrangement with Pepsi lets you download whatever you want. Apple has stated repeatedly that they want to give all labels equal exposure (as in you can't buy better placement) in the Music Store.
Re:What better way to..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What better way to..... (Score:5, Funny)
On a (semi-)related note, I'm still waiting for the 6-Degrees-Of-Also-Bought. You know, people who bought A also bought B; people who bought B also bought C; people who bought C bought the Soundtrack to Flashdance with Kevin Bacon.
Re:What better way to..... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Maybe, maybe not. The last figures I saw showed that 45% of sales were toward full album purchases. iTunes is selling a lot of singles, but there are also a good deal of whole albums being sold.
Not only that but this will actually serve to push albums back into the main stream. It will no longer be profitable for a band to have 1 or 2 good songs and then poop out 9 mediocre ones to fill an album. Now if you want to sell an entire album you will make an entire album of quality songs. Those bands that concentrate on the super singles will find themselves left in the dust, since a single makes 1/10th the amount a full album does.
In other News... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other News... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://theravensnest.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 27, @07:07AM)
McDonalds (Score:3, Funny)
AAC is nice and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday July 22 2003, @11:00AM)
Mike
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://arbeck.net/)
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.dotiweb.org/ | Last Journal: Friday March 21 2003, @07:49PM)
You're also lossy because the amplitude of your signal is discrete. The voltage of your waveform can't take on any voltage, only one of 2^16th (from memory) discrete values. That's another form of signal loss.
I still believe that a CD has higher fidelity sound than any vinyl I've heard. Maybe if you spend enough cash and get some very specialized equipment and special albums you'll have higher quality sound, but I'm not personally willing to spend that much money.
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Anyway, grab a spectrum analyzer and look at the signal. What's the difference between a 20 kHz sine wave and a 20 kHz square wave? The 20 kHz square wave is composed of a 20 kHz sine wave (the fundamental) and odd-order harmonics at 60 kHz, 100 kHz etc. I don't care how golden your ears are, unless you are a bat, you will never be able to hear the odd-order harmonics of a 20 kHz square wave. As far as human perception is concerned, the 20 kHz sine wave and 20 kHz square wave are indistinguishable.
The 16-bit ADC (analog to digital converter) introduces quantization noise, but the SQNR (signal to quantization noise ratio) is 96 dB. With properly mastered program material, the quantization noise is inaudible.
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.scorchingbeauty.com/)
Just last night I had Metallica over for a set...
Now that Lars is using a pie tin for his kit, this is actually possible.
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:5, Informative)
And if you take into consideration that you CAN NOT get back EXACTLY from vinyl what was written to it, while with a CD this is perfectly possible, you should doubly reconsider your statement.
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a lot easier distributing 1 billion songs online than 70 million cd's.
Re:AAC is nice and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
But then only the older slashdotters have any idea I'm talking about.....
But are CD's really lossless? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday October 26 2004, @06:54PM)
I'll take a #2 (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.genericgeek.com/)
-That'll be $4.59 for the meal, and $2.00 for the music, please drive-thru.
-Sweeeet!
gasp! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www-gap.dcs.s...ians/Theaetetus.html | Last Journal: Friday August 15 2003, @08:32AM)
A spokesperson for Apple declined comment...
-T
So far, Apple and McDonalds haven't confirmed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"it is unclear how McDonalds" (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.mac-adam.com/)
Whatever journalist wrote this should be sent home without lunch!
What the hell do you mean unclear?
Here, let's take a stab; Pepsi Co. announces 1 million song giveaway via redeemable codes on their three main product bottle caps. 1 in 3 caps will have a code valued at $0.99. Hundreds of thousands of iTunes Music Store users are now poised and ready to only drink and purchase Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist for the duration of the promotion because there really is no reason to purchase any other product since none of them are possibly giving you back $3 worth of music per 6 pack!
McDonalds announces promotion where the purchase of any combo meal will include a peel off sticker on the french fry container with 1 code redeemable for a free song valued at $0.99 at the ITMS. Promotion to continue until 1 billion free songs are given away. Millions of iTunes Music Store customers now opt for lunch at McDonalds since it's the only fast food offering where a $4 happy meal includes a $1 song reward. There's no reason to eat at Burger King.
You can watch for these bottle caps and happy meal stickers to be auctioned off enmase on eBay about 3 hours after the first promotion starts.
Collecting iTunes Music Store free song promotion codes will become the new baseball card of the 2004 summer.
Other terms of the deal (Score:5, Funny)
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess that's as close as Mc Donalds Will get (Score:4, Funny)
Step-in-the-right-direction Dept.? (Score:3, Interesting)
I like my CDs. I like being able to take something home from the store, and having something in my hand in case my computer crashes.
It's nice that iTunes is getting publicity-- it's a great service, it really is. But I don't want the CD format to die, and I don't think most consumers do, either.
The advantage of iTunes is choice beyond the traditional ways of buying music. What makes the online music phenomenon nice is the flexibility, not simply the elimination of physical media.
Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
I really hope not! At least with CD's I can still rip to whatever audio format I prefer, in whatever quality level I wan't. Can't do what with AAC files. (Well you could, but transcoding music can degrade the quality quite a bit)
It's also nice having something real, instead of a file that you may or may not own. Or worse, can disappear or become unplayable for who knows what reason they'd cook up.
What they didn't tell you (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday October 22, @04:01PM)
You can pick new-skool hits like "I'm lovin' it" and "We love to see you smile," or go back to the old days with "At McDonald's, we do it all for you," "Keep your eyes on your fries," and "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun."
Perhaps Coca-Cola will get in on the deal? "Ain't nothing but the real thing," "Coke is it!," "I'd like to teach the world to sing" and of course "Always Coca-Cola" are big hits in the beverage world.
McDonald's: No Deal To Announce (Score:5, Informative)
MacMinute [macrumors.com] notes a statement from McDonald's [macrumors.com] regarding today's rumor [macrumors.com] about the McDonald's and iTunes giveaway.
According to McDonalds, "There are no agreements to announce, so anything else is pure speculation."
McDonald's goes on to say that they are continuing to pursue "bold new initiatives in the areas of music, sports, fashion and entertainment" and that news can be expected in the coming weeks to months.
Just means more for the Beatles Apple label.. (Score:3, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday October 25 2004, @09:28AM)
McDonald's denies the rumor (Score:5, Interesting)
McDonalds replaces the Millions of deleted MP3s (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.luxedit.com/ | Last Journal: Monday April 21 2003, @06:50PM)
They just had to step in and lend a hand. Perhaps this is a new direction for the Ronald McDonald House Charity, giving back to all the poor soles who one way or another lost their music
Consider the source! (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://forechecker.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 07, @08:16PM)
End of CD is here - in The Netherlands (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday December 20 2006, @07:31PM)
According to Dutch news, DVD sales have exceeded CD-Audio sales this year.
One popular Dutch artist is actually going to stop putting his music on CD, going DVD-only. (only returning to CD if DVD sales, against expectancy, aren't high enough)
There's several reasons for this
- DVDs cost about as much as DVD-audios here
- You get a LOT more value for money (various performances, videos, interviews, etc.)
- They think it's a little bump in the way of piracy.
The latter, as far as the music goes, is of course pointless to the educated masses.
But given the choice between
A. an 'expensive' DVD-R, spending quite a bit of time downloading the content, and optionally printing things out
or
B. the original without all the fuss, for not all *that* much money
I think B is going to be a choice for many.
The end of CD audio, at least here, started when people realized they were getting little value for money when compared to alternatives such as DVDs.
Enough music to last a loooong time... (Score:3, Interesting)
First Free Download.... (Score:5, Funny)
It's better than a McDonald's/RIAA partnership (Score:4, Funny)
Less Overhead for Apple this way? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.chrishardie.com/)
Sure, there are other costs invovlved in managing that kind of program, but if Apple sets it up well, they could actually be increasing their profit by making the retail vendors pay for some of those costs.