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- JohntB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'd be more interested in seeing the derivative, personally.
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The story here is the growth rate. When you see it on the graph you can see that the growth is going up, not leveling off. You're entitled to your opinion though.
- rtwolf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Exponential growth is to be expected with such a situation. iTunes certainly has a competitive edge, of being the first to make it very easy to buy songs. Coupled with their iPod, this is a marvelous setting. Unless there are nasty surprises in store, I think they'll keep doing quite well for themselves.
- stridey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow, it's a perfect exponential curve. Cool stuff.
- otomo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4diggSLUT: To quote from the 40 year old virgin:
You know how I know you're gay? You like Coldplay.
After that movie I cannot respect anybody that likes Coldplay. - drn666, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I don't particularly give a ***** about iTunes since I prefer my songs at about 5 cents a pop (or a couple cents a meg), but I don't think this necessarily counts as spam."
Since you're using AllofMp3.com, you might as well just use BitTorrent or Gnutella, since the legality of buying from either is equivelant. Yes, AllOfMp3.com may be legally -selling- music, but it's not legal for you (as an American) to buy it.
Just thought I'd save you the $0.05/mb. - gfarrar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the title of the graph is misleading... it says that its a graph of purchased itunes songs... really its a graph of downloaded iTunes songs. Apple gives a way lots of iTunes coupons for free songs.
- Johnnie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you plot it on a log graph, you can probably predict about a doubling every 7 months.
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There were some questions about the graph. I did create it myself. I know this story might look like a repeat of the original 1 billion purchased digg but the whole point of the story is slope of the graph. It's going straight up. And yeah, I dugg the story myself so feel free to bring on the flames for that.
- phunlee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Jesus, people will complain about anything. It's just facts. It's a freaking chart. You can't get more plain/layman than that... but since you posted it you must have an agenda. and you dugg it? wow, you propagandist....
It's a neat chart, it leaves me wondering what will happen later on. iTunes did it right from the beginning and none of the other sites can compete yet. We'll see what happens.
Excellent Digg Story, btw. - DrEbola, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well, the equation is dy/dt = Cy, for some arbitrary constant C. The question is, why is the rate at which songs are downloaded proportional to the number of songs downloaded?
So, I'm not too smart, so I'm not really sure if that "I'd be more interested in seeing the derivative, personally" was a joke, but since it's an exponential curve, of course, the derivative is just another exponential curve! Pretty funny how that works, huh? - pheonix2og, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0maddoginthefog: I could care less that you dugg you own story. Why not digg your own story, you want people to see it, right? My problem was that this isn't exactly "news" as there is nothing new about it: a.) Of course their business isn't leveling off, it's going to keep going up... b.) The billion songs story was already submitted.
My other problem was that it is from your own site, which seems a ploy to drag people into your blog site since this isn't anything new. - kohner86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm suprised at how nice a curve it is.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder what the line graph is for PlaysForSure players. *snicker*
- dusingaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0anyone smart enough to extrapolate out what futures numbers will be at this rate of increase?
- smithchr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ok. So, this graph bothered me and I decided to make one of my own (no hosting that will sustain a digg-attack, so just take my word for this).
Instead of showing *total* downloads on the vertical axis, my graph shows difference in downloads between the previous and current date from the data at the top of the linked site provided by the poster. This new graph still has a serious exponential-type shape, but didn't look quite right.
So, using the curve-fitting built into excel, I found that a 5th order polynomial is the lowest order curve that closely follows the data. The equation of this curve is given as "y = 3E-12x^5 - 2E-09x^4 + 6E-07x^3 + 0.0002x^2 + 0.0146x + 1.6345".
I just have one comment: when it comes to making graphs, a cumulative total on the dependant axis and time period on the independent axis is just asking for trouble. You could easily fool yourself into believing that your data shows something it just does not. Also, data on a graph of that sort is much harder to analyze as you have to manipulate it in a manner similar to the method I used in order to extrapolate specific information from the data. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I reckon the slope's increasing due to more users coming on board worldwide. If the rate of purchases per customer remained the same, the exponential would still occur thanks to the increasing number of customers.
Could be something else, I'm open to other ideas. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The graph is misleading, it should show, from week one, each weeks amount of songs sold, not sold since starting.
- escheppa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ChiefCrazyTalk You know the fish in your shoes are dead.
- escheppa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'd like to see the graph for the last month, I think that would be interesting or even hour by hour up until they broke 1 billion.
- hollums, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1quoted from the source site comments
____________________________________________________________
Those are incredible numbers. I wonder if they are real?
Anonymous, at 2:28 PM, February 26, 2006
Of course its real, apple just reported the 1 billionth song download.
Anonymous, at 5:05 PM, February 26, 2006
____________________________________________________________
i just thought that was funny. - dignon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That's really impressive. Suck a simple graph, but it really drives home how impressive an accomplishment this is for Apple, and digital content delivery.
- WocEnasni, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If this curve actually stays true, they'll sell their 2 billionth song around Dec. 10th of this year.
- neocitron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0holy crap... that line is gonna go up straight vertical!!!!
- jahutch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0First, to all the people extolling the "virtues" of bit torrent and such, well, you're part of the reason these changes in technology are being sued out of existence. About 25%. The other 75% belongs to the RIAA's ignorance. That aside - the vast majority of people I know no longer download songs illegally. Many of my friends by CDs, others buy from iTunes, only a few still download illegally. A lot of people were of the mind "give us a legal alternative that is reasonably priced and that doesn't require we buy 12 songs of crap for one song we want, and we'll take it." iTunes has done just that.
Another point is, there is likely to be substantial stickiness in this curve. Even if at some point in the future some actual competitors that are worth a darn show up to iTunes, by that time, most people interested in the legal download market will have a vested interest in iTunes. e.g, if you've been buying songs from iTunes for years and most of your library is now in that format, you aren't likely to switch even if you find a new competitor intriguing or cheaper. So Apple has really hit paydirt here - any future competitors will largely be competing for customers NEWLY interested in the music download market - those who have been Apple customers for a long enough time will be unlikely to switch for a variety of reasons. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I still find it sad that the billionth song was a fricken Coldplay song. What a crappy way to mark a milestone.
- dirtyfratboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0anyone find the equation?
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0runninmac - thanks for the info. I have added a data point for the 850 million announced at Macworld last month,
- runninmac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They are missing 850,000,000 from Mr. Jobs at Macworld SF
- MrManFitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wuleidando said, "time vs. accumulating sales? what's that supposed to tell you?"
Agreed. The intent of the article is clear and has achieved its purpose, but the execution was shoddy. - SteveR4376, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Some of us would rather buy the CD and rip our own full quality version of the songs rather than pay iTunes to give us idiot-proof, one click, low quality, proprietary, copy protected versions of the same thing. I'm not among the billion.
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0qubatron - take a look at Apple's 10-Q report on http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/10/107357/reports/10Q_Q1FY06.pdf.
On page 26, you'll see $ 491 million for Q4 2005 (it was $ 177 in Q4 2004) for "Other music related products and services". I think those numbers back up what is shown on this graph. - alfoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Here's a plot of song sales from the beginning:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/itms_sales.html
Here's a plot of iPod sales from the beginning:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/ipod_sales.html - RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They are approaching infinity. I bet they will be happy when they sell infinity songs in a day. Then maybe Steve Jobs will start wearing a bowtie and cufflinks on his black turtleneck.
- Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This chart is plotting _total_ sales. This is a number that only ever increments. Assuming sales are growing steadily, the graph will _always_ be a simple curve. The steepness of the curve has nothing to do with sales, it has to do with the frequency of the scale the data is plotted on.
- sedawk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You know, if I said two years ago that someone was going to legally sell 1 Billion songs on the internet within 24 months -- You would say that I was on crack. This is totally cool!
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 gfarrar - I'm not sure how Apple defines "purchased" but here's a quote from their announcement about the 1 billionth song purchased:
"Music lovers like you in 21 countries around the globe have purchased one billion songs from the iTunes Music Store."
It's also unclear to me if video purchases are counted in that number. Anyone? - maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0TheoDork - fyi, I have absolutely no affiliation with Apple. I own an iPod (ok, I have 3 iPods), but I don't even purchase songs fromiTunes. However, I do think this graph says a lot about how purchasing digital music has gone mainstream.
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Flankk - yes, it is total sales on the graph. However, the slope of the graph is going up. With all of the complaining about Apple's DRM and all that you hear about people using other sources for digital music like ripping CD's, getting CD's from Russian sites for $.05 per MB, using BitTorrent, etc., I would have thought that the slope of the graph would be more linear. Instead it is sloping up. Everybody should draw their own conclusions about what this graph is saying, but what it tells me is that a LOT of people don't care about the DRM and more and more people are buying iPod's. In other words, the market for purchasing digital music is NOT saturated. It is growing.
- jpatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0video purchases did NOT count towards the contest, so I doubt the video purchases count in any song purchase round-ups.
- UsernameTaken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wuleidando said, "time vs. accumulating sales? what's that supposed to tell you?"
and then mrmanfidz added "Agreed. The intent of the article is clear and has achieved its purpose, but the execution was shoddy."
and I say: STFU. If you knew how to read a graph you could easily tell that sales have been roughly doubling every 30 weeks. That's very close to exponential growth, and impressive to say the least. - WDot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0While I don't like DRM and overly lossy songs, I have to respect Apple. They haven't been able to dominate market share with OS's and computers... yet... But in the digital music realm, they've made themselves king.
- maddoginthefog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0A few people have raised very valid questions about the graph showing the total sales on the y-axis. Here is the weekly sales rate for the data that I plotted:
week 1: 1 million songs per week
week 7: 0.7 million songs per week
week 18: 0.5 million songs per week
week 32: 1.1 million songs per week
week 45: 1.0 million songs per week
week 62: 2.9 million songs per week
week 84: 4.5 million songs per week
week 115: 9.9 million songs per week
week 140: 13.8 million songs per week
week 147: 23.3 millions songs per week
Unless I have my math all wrong here, this is saying that for the past 85 weeks, the weekly sales rate has continued to go up. It was flat (about 1 million songs per week) for the first 45 months.
Things started taking off somewhere between week # 45 and #62. I'm assuming that this corresponded to a big jump in iPod sales but I haven't looked into that. I think the iLounge guys did some analysis on that a few months ago. - Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0maddoginthefog, if there were no sales, the graph would be flat-line. If there wasn't any sales growth, the graph would be diagonal. All I was stating is that if there is sales growth, the graph median will always be a curve; especially on a long term scale like this one.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that iTMS is a growing sector for Apple. It has been for several years. "...a LOT of people don't care about the DRM and more and more people are buying iPod's" That's right! The majority of consumers are naive and don't even know what DRM is. Don't expect that to change. - chiefcrazytalk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Reminds me of Disco Stu on the Simpsons. "This graph shows sales of disco records through 1978. If these trends continue.....Aaaaay!"
- subcodec, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0anyone have figures on the sales from all4mp3.com?? there you could look at both the # of songs and how much (TB). It would be interesting to see how a company like that is keeping up since you can download different quality levels. I know I'd be interested in seeing how many choose the higher levels or even the lossless music available.
- kayto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0singularity here we come!
- YuleLogger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks like my Visa bill...
- subcodec, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0oops...I meant allofmp3.com...my bad
- JohntB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yes, I know that the derivative of an exponential graph is itself exponential, but I'm curious how close to exponential this trend really is. Obviously, this can't keep going up exponentially forever, and I think that seeing the derivative might be interesting.
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