500 Million
By Lawrence I. Charters
Washington Apple Pi Journal, reprint information
This summer [2005] Apple held a contest to promote their iTunes Music Store. In just over two years, iTunes had grown from a Mac music organizing and playing package to a series of stores around the world to a (nearly identical) Windows software package. Along the way, Apple announced the purchase and download of half a billion songs, and on July 18, 2005, they announced that a woman in Lafayette, Indiana, had won ten iPods for family and friends, a gift card for 10,000 songs, and a paid trip for four to see a rock concert.
500 million songs is almost 4,300 years of continuous music. A great many analysts and computer industry leaders have called the iPod and the iTunes Music Store a “fad.” It may be, but few fads create such profound changes in so many industries -- computer, software, music, music appliances -- in such a short period of time.
Reviewed
September 23, 2007
Washington Apple Pi is an international user group, with a history spanning three decades to the dawn of personal computing. The “Pi” continues to serve users of the very first personal computers as well as users of the most modern, advanced systems through its meetings, magazine, computer bulletin board and Internet services.
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