1 Billion iTunes Contest

pvt_medic writes "Apple has announced their newest contest for the 1 Billionth iTunes song downloaded. Every 100,000 downloads someone will win an iPod nano and a $100 giftcard, with the grand prize being an iMac, 10 iPod (60GB), and $10,000 credit at iTunes. Looks like business is going well for Apple."

10 iPods?

[Mr. Sketch]

I'm curious, what does one do with ten 60GB iPods? It seems that you keep one for yourself and sell the other 9 on eBay. Maybe give some to your friends? Maybe give an iPod to your senator [ipaction.org]?

It just seems like ten iPods is a lot for one person and will just end up being given away.

Re:Cheap Bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

Mathematically challenged much? You also forgot to take into account the fact that Apple don't get to keep that dollar for themselves; the majority goes straight into the pockets of the recording companies.

Sell the extras.

[sfgoth]

Otherwise they probably threw in the extra 9 iPods just to make it more prohibitively expensive & hope that the winner can't claim the prize.

Maybe they threw in the extra 9 iPods so you could sell them on eBay to pay the taxes?

Or maybe they don't actually care either way.

Re:Entry open to...

[elmegil]

So basically only US citizens get a way to enter for free. As required by US law. Why is that surprising?

Re:10 iPods?

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Well, I think Apple is expecting the person to give them away. Then there's 9 more iTunes customers.

Re:Doing Well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mayhaps, but it seems wrong to even take gross into consideration. Suppose I have a company that sells cars, making only $1 off each car sold. The cars still COST ME $14,999, but I sell them for $15,000 even. Then I announce a contest where every 100,000 cars I sell I give away $75,000. Following the logic of using "gross" to calculate the "sacrifice" or "generosity" factor, I made $1.5billion (gross)!! $75,000 isn't a lot compared to $1.5billion (it's about 5%).

However, if you use "net", then I've only made $100,000, so giving away $75,000 is actually 75%!

So this is an extreme case, but you get the idea. Of course I was off on my saying the problem was with the definition; certainly it wasn't. The other problem is we don't know Apple's net income from an iTunes sale, but we do know it is about $0.33 after the record company takes their fair share. So factor in network, advertising, etc and it seems like they are not making a whole lot.

But then you have to remember they indirectly sell iPods (and even Macs) by the iTunes store, because it gains them mindshare, etc etc. In the end it's not easy to calculate it's total value to them, I guess, but using the gross is a bad idea.