It’s official; over a billion legal songs have been downloaded from the iTunes music store since it opened. The iTunes Music Store is available in over 21 countries, and the winner of the billionth song download has been notified that they’ve won the billionth song grand prize; or in other words a 10 60Gb iPods, a 20-inch iMac computer, and a $10,000 iTunes gift card! What a prize, eh?
Quite a benchmark Apple is celebrating today, and a well-deserved one; Apple almost singlehandedly responded to the demand of the music loving community and offered them a method to download only one or two songs they liked instead of having to purchase an entire album, and gave us all a way to get our music digtally but also legally. Congratulations Apple, and congratulations to the billionth song downloader!
Update :: The billionth song and downloader have both been announced to the public! The billionth song was “Speed of Sound” and purchased as part of Coldplay’s X&Y album by Alex Ostrovsky from West Bloomfield, Michigan. Congratulations, Alex!