One Billion downloads from iTunes

Apple reached that milestone yesterday and a very lucky teenager in Michigan hit the jackpot; a 20″ iMac, 10 iPods, a gift card for $10,000 worth of downloads and a scholarship donated to Juilliard’s school of music, in his name. 
 
I’m not jealous because I was already disqualified as an Apple employee. 
 
I am rather impressed with how well the iTunes side of the store has done though. A billion songs within a three-year period and it has expanded to 21 countries. For me, it’s just the successor to buying 45s and with my younger friends it’s the successor to cassingles. 
 
I still encounter people who pursue the “free” options on the Internet. Personally, I don’t have a gripe with what they do. They’re entitled to their opinion and consequences (if there ever will be). I only found iTunes’ “free” cousins rather lousy, difficult to use and filled with poor selection. Alright, the iTunes Store could use an improvement on its selection too but I think that’s more the fault of the labels not knowing what they actually have the rights on (especially Sony). 
 
So a big thumbs up for the store’s success on moving one billion mp3s. On to one trillion!