Is Apple's iTunes countdown counter rigged?
February 21, 2006 6:59 PM   Subscribe

The iTunes Billion Songs Countdown is bringin' out the nrrrrds: they developed a widget, published stats, wrote a Java applet, and even hacked a more accurate counter than Apple's (which by all appearances, seems to be to be rigged!)
posted by eener (22 comments total)
 
Enter for free here.
posted by delmoi at 7:27 PM on February 21, 2006


Hmm, I notice apple had this album in their little scrolly album thing. Cute.
posted by delmoi at 7:29 PM on February 21, 2006


They totaly missed the the slogan "the counter winners can count on".

Sheesh.
posted by delmoi at 7:37 PM on February 21, 2006


So if they're selling about 1,000 songs every 14 seconds and they're about 4,100,000 songs away from 1 billion, is that, what, 16 hours away?

/not good at the maths
posted by effwerd at 8:02 PM on February 21, 2006


So if they're selling about 1,000 songs every 14 seconds and they're about 4,100,000 songs away from 1 billion, is that, what, 16 hours away?

I bet that rate will go substantially higher as the billion song mark comes near.
posted by unixrat at 8:07 PM on February 21, 2006


damn you delmoi..why...whyyyy!!!
posted by Mr Bluesky at 8:15 PM on February 21, 2006


True. I'm just trying to get an very general when I should start buying a song a second. ;) (Though I'll be at work, dammit.)
posted by effwerd at 8:17 PM on February 21, 2006


ugh. bad edit. a very general idea when i should start.
posted by effwerd at 8:21 PM on February 21, 2006


Does buying videos count??
posted by matty at 8:22 PM on February 21, 2006


Among other things you win TEN iPods? I bet Karl Lagerfield's excited:

Fendi's out with a multiple jukebox holder that can carry up to a dozen iPods. In fact, it is more of a purse than an iPod container. The purse even contains earpiece outlets, so there won't be unnecessary cords to ruin your outfit. The Fendi "jukepurse" is designed by German iPod fanatic, Karl Lagerfield, who decided to design a bag for Fendi that's modeled after his own iPod case. One might ask him, why would you ever need to hold 12 iPods? Well that's easy to answer because Lagerfield himself owns 40. [link]
posted by Ian A.T. at 8:52 PM on February 21, 2006


I am underwhelmed by the grand prize. Only $16,000, and all spent at Apple. Not quite what I would expect when you're celebrating a billion dollars of sales. Go Apple.

OTOH it's kind of amusing that some random kid gets a full scholarship to Julliard or Berklee out of you, which is worth a lot more than your prize.
posted by smackfu at 8:56 PM on February 21, 2006


By the way, someone gets a prize every 100k songs sold, and the 'hackers' counter is only off by about 400-500 songs on average. So if you can use it to guess in the right 12 seconds or so, you can have a 1/400 chance of winning. There are only 41 100k units to go before a billion, though.
posted by delmoi at 8:59 PM on February 21, 2006


A 1/400 chance of winning... a $350 prize.

So you probably should still really want the song you're buying.
posted by smackfu at 9:01 PM on February 21, 2006


Man, smackfu, those are better odds than most games like that.

I agree that the counter is probably rigged -- what would be the point in synching it up? It's just a symbol. If I were Apple, I would want to be able to control the pace of announcements, etc. Just 'cause you have ten 100,000-tick song winners overnight doesn't mean you can't fudge the counters and push them to the evenings and early mornings, as long as you give prizes to the right people.

(Agreed, that might not be the rationale -- I'd guess that some dev was just told to hack up some backend script that runs at x rate and they just synch it up every so often. I doubt they thought anyone would care this much.)

And I can't imagine they wouldn't document that shit. It's just not worth the money and it'd be too easy to get caught, compared to the costs of just keeping accurate records, which I'm sure they have to do anyway.

smackfu has the best username evar. Just wanted to say that.
posted by spiderwire at 12:50 AM on February 22, 2006


consumer zombie saps, all of you...
posted by quonsar at 4:24 AM on February 22, 2006


OK, I'll bite. The thought of strapping a 60gb iPod to each of my ten fingers is pretty enticing.
posted by rollbiz at 7:58 AM on February 22, 2006


OK, I'll bite. The thought of strapping a 60gb iPod to each of my ten fingers is pretty enticing.

rollbiz, I have found this is really only practical with shuffles.

but really-- what quonsar said.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:31 PM on February 22, 2006


You'd think this was an election or something. Hell, it would be nice if people paid half as much attention to real elections as this.

I think that if Apple was going to be audited for transparency by... Apple... and if they would subsequently be investigated and prosecuted by... themselves, I wouldn't be nearly as confident in this process.

I'm thinking that a lot of K Street money probably wouldn't help the situation, either.
posted by spiderwire at 6:16 PM on February 22, 2006


i think McDonald's is getting close to 2 trillion served.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:42 AM on February 23, 2006


Man, smackfu, those are better odds than most games like that.

But well worse than craps or blackjack. Save your money for the casino. (I never thought I'd say that sincerely.)
posted by mrgrimm at 8:44 AM on February 23, 2006


The billionth song has been downloaded. Sadly, it was a Coldplay track.
posted by brain_drain at 3:56 PM on February 23, 2006


If that ain't zeigeist, I don't know what is.
posted by spiderwire at 10:49 PM on February 23, 2006


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