iTunes Music Store sells 275,000 Tracks in 18 Hours

physicsnerd writes "According to this article on Billboard.com, Apple's iTunes Music store sold 275,000 tracks in its first 18 hours of operation. The Register.com estimates that this netted Apple just under $100,000! Not too bad for a 99 cents store." Impressive considering the connection problems people were having. Remains to be seen what usage will be after the hype settles down.

Meanwhile....

[frodo from middle ea]

Windows users (i.e. 95 %) continue to download stuff from kazaa.

Yikes!

[grub]

Why so many downloads? I thought Macs had Gnutella clients.

yeah I'm joking

Exactly...

[Kjella]

Windows users (i.e. 95 %) continue to download stuff from kazaa.

Which means that if a client was availible for 100% of the market, perhaps they could have sold 275,000*20 = 5,500,000 tracks in 18 hours. It's math even RIAA monkeys could figure out.

Kjella

RIAA math....

[Archfeld]

The RIAA would first multiply the number based on the speed and number of your cd drives, and the barometric pressure in Thailand :)

Re:A nice looking service

[(trb001)]

I may now have to buy an Apple just to use the service

Hrm...CDs cost $13-$17 each, computers cost hundreds...you may want to reexamine your economic model.

--trb

Re:And the recording industry went along with this

[Daniel_Staal]

Never underestimate the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field(TM).

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

To you Mac users who have seen the store but haven't smoked crack, let me tell you, that stuff is as addictive as the iTunes Music store. With a small pipe and a small torch, I was able to smoke crack and get strung out for a week.

Whats with the Wacky Pixel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that noticed this here?

There's a black pixel on this post just a little above the third '0' of "Apple's iTunes Music store sold 275,000". It's supposed to be some sort of .gif but if you click on it it does a search for this post...talk about redundant. I think it might be some sort of FBI spy pixel maskerading as something innocent. Then again, maybe it's time for an increase in my dosage.

Re:Internet Crack

[tedtimmons]

15 or 20 tracks later, I'll realize I just dropped $20

Ahh yes. They trick us with math again. If you only get 15 tracks for $20, I've got a bridge to sell you :-)

Re:A nice looking service

[RedX]

Since it stores you credit card, it is perhaps TOO easy to download songs

You've got that right. After I purchased a couple of individual songs yesterday, I checked the "don't ask me again" box that pops-up after you click the Buy button to remind you that you actually will be charged. I then purchased a couple of full albums, which was so quick and easy without that pop-up reminder that I thought to myself just how dangerous this could be to my wallet.

How is the selection? Can you get

[ZipR]

...that new song by Madonnna where she just cusses and swears all the time?

"Forget any device that isn't an iPod"

[Gorimek]

Apparently Michael Robertson hasn't yet been informed that iTunes will burn regular audio CDs that you can play in pretty much any CD or DVD player in the world.

I am sure he will issue a correction and an apology as soon as this fact reaches him.

A very good use for the iTunes Store

[Alexander]

Is that the 30 second song "sample" is just viral enough to infect co-workers.

Someone in your office you don't like? Give them 30 seconds of Air Supply. They'll be humming "Making Love out of Nothing At All" ALL DAY LONG!!!

Tee-Hee

Re:Internet Crack

[gfxguy]

I'm also thinking that Mac users are accustomed to paying a bit more.

DMCA

[yerricde]

Anyone want to bet on how many days go by before someone has reverse-engineered the MaciMusic store protocol and written an app that masquerades as iTunes-on-a-Mac thus allowing Linux and Windows users to purchase music through Apple?

Anyone want to bet on how many minutes it will take for the RIAA or one of the major labels to send a cease-and-desist letter alleging violation of 17 USC 1201(a), claiming that the presence of a Macintosh® computer is an access control mechanism?

Re:Do any shopping lately?

[tbmaddux]

If you go to an upscale restaurant (or a restaurant that wants to be thought of as upscale, at least) you'll notice that the prices drop the decimals altogether.

You order from a menu? And it has prices? Peasant!

Hey tin ears...

[Anonymous Coward]

"AAC sounds fantastic"

Not at 128kb it don't. It sound good.

Why does everyone think their personal experience defines the limits of what's okay and what's not?

And why does everyone generalize so much?

Re:Future looks bright

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Perhaps we might eventually see this sort of self-serve stuff at regular retail outlets?

Not until they can figure out how to make the user interface tell you about all the great features of the optional product protection plan that can be yours for such a low low price, because you know the %device_purchased% you have selected is known to have a %random_negative_adjective% %random_part_name% which tends to go bad in %random_time_interval% and if you don't purchase one of our completely optional (no obligation to buy but I'll continue to drone on and on until you buy one or make me stop) product protection plans then you'll have to send it off to one of their repair sites located in %random_third_world_country% and it usually takes %random_long_length_of_time% and costs %price_times_two% so you're really better off paying the small amount, only %price_over_3% now because you'll save money in the long run.

In Related News...

[billtom]

In the past 18 hours, 275,000 new AAC encoded songs appears on Kazaa.

Re:Yes, it will keep up

[hondo77]

Does it seamlessly integrate into the Linux based MP3 player in my car? Does it seamlessly integrate into my Sun Workstation? Can I burn the audio to CD? Is it worth $1?

• No.
• People still use Sun workstations?
• Yes.
• Yes.

Re:A nice looking service

[letxa2000]

Mice and keyboards don't count. :)

Revealed as an elitist indy music prig by iTunes

[benwaggoner]

So, I've got 14K songs in my MP3-based iTunes library, replicating my CD collection. I'm a mini-van driving work-from-home 32 year old married father of two who wasn't cool in the day, and certainly am not cool now. I don't have a tattoo, ride a Vespa, or compile kernels from source.

But, to my surprise, I'm revealed to be an elitist indy music prig! To test the new service, I sorted my iTunes library by play count so I could compare the quality of my current rips with the new service's previews.

And darn it off if pretty much all the music I listen to isn't from one of the majors! In order of "play count":

Sleater-Kinney - nope
The Hives - yep (one album)
The White Stripes - nope
Husker Du - nope
Man or Astroman - no
Len - just three tracks
Rancid - no
Veruca Salt - yep (two albums)
The Clash - pretty much everything
Riverdales - no
Screeching Weasel - no
Beastie Boys - no (an on a major, I thought)
Cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - nope!
Fugazi - no
Renegade Soundwave - no
Gang of Four - no
Luscious Jackson - yep
Pop Will Eat Itself - just one album
Tricky - lots of stuff
X - just one album

So, of my top twenty-by-listening bands (which is surprisingly different from what i would have guessed they would be), only 4 have a substantial body of their work available among the 200,000 tracks available through iTunes.

Re:We have a catch 22

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I get it! When you wrote "Store" you replaced the S with a dollar sign, indicating money! Wait, wait... don't tell me... you were trying to associate the iTunes Music Store and the Apple Store with money, right?

That makes sense, I guess, seeing as how both the iTunes Music Store and the Apple Store sell things.

Kind of a lame joke, I suppose. But I can see how it will come in handy. Like, for example, I can write this:

¥ou're £ame!

See? It's fun to use punctuation as words!

Re:A nice looking service

[TomorrowPlusX]

Heh. I meant write an objective c++ "bridge". If I could write a bride for myself in objective-c++ I think I'd never leave my apartment again. And my GF might be somewhat offput.

The Onion Guy

[ArsSineArtificio]

Not when I live within walking distance of two, and bicycling distance of many. I'm sorry you happen to be a slave to a motor vehicle. I should realize that not everyone is as lucky as me.

Hee hee hee! You sound like the guy from the Onion article who didn't own a television set.

"Are those celebrities you're discussing? I wouldn't know - I don't know who any of those people are. I don't own a television set. I'm sorry the rest of you are addicted to that sort of thing."

This and that snippet

[ArsSineArtificio]

If you want to sell songs, you need to put in the extra work to grab the part of the clip that is most likely to get the listener's interest.

How on earth are they supposed to do that when they have 200,000 songs? Not to mention the fact that there are going to be lots of different opinions as to what the best part of the song it.

I can imagine being the customer service rep who has the job of sifting through emails like that.

"Dear Apple, I am very angry. My favorite song is 'Silver Squeeze' by the Banana Peppers. But you only have 'Toxic Shock Syndrome' and 'Gaetulian Iarbas' by them, and both of those are off a different and lame album! Also, they cut off 'Toxic Shock' right before the awesome vibraphone solo, and really the sample should be between 0:47 and 1:17 for the best effect. This is NOT FAIR to my favorite band. I DEMAND that you fix this IMMEDIATELY or I won't spend my $0.99 on you!!1!"

Thanks, Eagles fans

[Zhe Mappel]

To quote the Register:

It's not a patch on hardware revenues, but every little bit helps in these tough times.

As an Apple user who has no interest in 70s rock dinosaurs, I'd like to thank those who do. ;-)

Re:Canadians will never pay that

[pressman]

Anyone who willingly purchases Celine Dion, April Wine, Shania Twain or Bryan Adams should be put on a "watched" list.

Re:As we'd say in Boston

[Gropo]

Omai fahk'n Goahd dood!
Totally fahk'n bzah - I wuz jus' think'n tha same fahk'n thing, Gai!
Pissah! Say h'lo t'da m'ssus fah me.

Sinseahly,
- Lef Summavl 2 fahk'n yeahs ago

Re:A nice looking service

[mrscorpio]

And if you think I'm paying $1000 for one button, you're wrong. I require at least THREE buttons for my $1000, if not SIX!

Chris

obSpellNazi

[msouth]

Guess what happens if you hard drive crashes? You loose all your music!

No, "loosing" your music was when you put them on the p2p network...