100 Million Free Songs

So I watched the Apple Music Event yesterday, and in his presentation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained the “100 Million Free Songs” promotion.

In a nutshell, Pepsi is going to produce 300 million Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Sierra Mist bottles with special yellow caps. With every bottle you buy, you have the chance to win a free song through iTunes. All you have to do is launch iTunes, enter the code on the cap, and get your free song! The best part? One in three caps are winners! (Hence the 100 million free songs.)

The promotion will launch with the Superbowl on February 1st, and last for 60 days, until March 31st. Expect major promotion and advertisements on TV and in print.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but for that two month period, whenever I’m thirsty, I’ll be sure to grab for a Diet Pepsi, Pepsi, or Sierra Mist (the last two being my favorite two soft drinks anyways!)

I Love Thee, Apple

Apple has an awesome way of giving the public more than what it expected. For example, when it was announced that iTunes for Windows would be launched today, most people simply thought, “Awesome, iTunes for Windows!”

But, Apple took us by suprise by not only launching a version of iTunes for Windows, but an updated iTunes version overall, iTunes 4.1, including the “second generation Music Store.” New features include the ability to share music between Macs and PCs, sync voice notes and On-The-Go playlists from your iPod, burn large playlists onto multiple CDs or DVDs, and drag and drop links from the iTunes Music Store into emails, instant messages or web pages. Also, audiobooks are now available in the Music Store, a new Power Search feature using more options is available, you can set up allowance accounts so children can access music legally, without giving them a credit card, and finally, you have the ability to send gift certificates to friends and family via email. Wow. Did I mention that I love Apple?

To further stress their “go beyond what’s expected” attitude, Apple completely recreated the iPod webpages into beautiful, understandable layouts, released new accessories for the iPod, including a voice recorder attachment and an external media reader, posted a brand new iPod TV ad, featuring “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and have left us, the public, wanting more by publishing a small advertisement that reads “100 million FREE songs Coming Feb 1,” seemingly sponsored by Pepsi.

Apple, you are a blessing!

Windows Users Get “Mac Experience”

In Tuesday’s entry, I noted that “if Apple gets iTunes for Windows out soon enough, they could outdo Napster and become the number one music downloading program across both the Mac and the Windows platform.” Well, with news that Apple will launch iTunes for Windows on October 16, it looks like Apple will one up Napster by launching first. Not to mention the fact that iTunes for Windows is guaranteed to be compatible with the iPod, unlike Napster or other 3rd-party music downloading programs.

I’m no psychic, but all things point to Apple being victorious. (Not to say that Napster can’t have a user base. I’m just noting that Apple will most likely be the more successful of the two.)