iTunes close to selling one billion downloads

Apple's iTunes is close to selling its one-billionth download, which is one of those figures that it's hard to get your head around. Needless to say, Apple will be milking the achievement for all its worth. They have an online meter monitoring all their sales in the run up to the billionth track. The consumer who downloads each 100,000th track in the run up will win a 4GB iPod nano and a $100 iTunes credit, while the purchaser of the billionth download will get a music scholarship set up at a major music school in their name. No, really. One lucky iTunes customer will have the knowledge that their name is being used to educate some musical wannabe. Which that cynic still locked out of the CMU office might say is a pretty rubbish prize. But don't worry, if you're downloader one billion you'll get a 20 inch iMac, ten 60GB iPods and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card too, to make up for all that scholarship nonsense.