With music downloads flying off the servers at the rate of 100 songs per second (which works out to about 500,000 hours [or 57 years] of playtime PER DAY), it’s no wonder so many IT geeks following Apple’s contest have been predicting for the past couple of weeks that the 10 Billionth Song download would come round any day now.

While the Black Eyed Peas have virtually dominated the most popular song position for weeks now, it was Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen That Way” that filled the 10,000,000,000th song sold spot. (I’ll spare you the plethora of bad puns involving the song title I’ve come up with…)

Sex Sells, but Apparently So Does Music

It’s a shame so much of the buzz around Apple’s download sales has been focused on the company’s ban of adult themed soft(core)ware [sex sells, right?]; today’s overshadowing of the landmark sale by the iTunes Music Store fails to emphasize the importance of such a feat. TEN BILLION–with a “B”–that’s more than the number of people on Earth! For perspective, 10 billion seconds ago would have been April 7th, 1693…plainly put, that’s a lot of songs!

Framed in terms of business, that’s a LOT of transactions. Ten years ago, it would have been a hard sell trying to convince even the biggest geeks that people would be so comfortable owning their music in digital format that analysts would be predicting 2010 would be the year downloads surpass physical music sales.

…of course, the icing on the cake is that not only do you not have to wait for the record store to open, but you don’t even have to get dressed to get that one song out of your head and into your ear buds…

Today’s Music Milestone Turns Up the Volume on Online Business

Apple opened its iTunes Music store April 28th, 2003, and, within 5 years, Apple surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US (announced April 3, 2008.) With Apple doubling its all-time music sales in just over 18 months (5 billion was reached in June of 2008), it’s a clear indicator that people’s attitudes and purchasing habits have dramatically changed from a decade ago.


With this clear increase in level of comfort with technology-based business transactions, and the inevitable *knock on wood* upswing in our economy (not to mention the benefits of convenience), more and more companies will be looking toward web-based solutions such as GoToMeeting as more immediate, cost-effective alternatives to flying people across the country (or world) for 2 hour meetings.