Imagine this, you're buying a sneaky Coldplay track off iTunes because that way you won't have to go into a record shop and admit you like Chris Martin's bland of mediocrity, you click 'buy' and then all these lights start flashing telling you you've just bought the 1 billionth track off iTunes and your name, and the track you were buying, is flashed across the world. Every music fan's nightmare, surely - "damn, if only I'd been buying 'Chico Time' or one of Atomic Kitten's cover versions".
But that's just what happened to one Alex Ostrovsky from West Bloomfield, Michigan yesterday when he became the buyer of iTunes' one billionth download with his purchase of Coldplay's 'Speed Of Sound'. Still, he'll now receive a 20-inch iMac, ten iPods and $10,000 worth of iTunes music, which might make up for the Coldplay fan outing. Just. And, of course, Apple are also going to establish a scholarship fund at the Juilliard School Of Music in his name, which means he'll be going down in history. As a Coldplay fan.
Anyway, enough of that, let's not lose sight of the landmark being achieved by Apple this week, less than three years since they set up their download platform. I present you, Mr Steve Jobs: "I hope that every customer, artist and music company executive takes a moment today to reflect on what we've achieved together during the past three years. Over one billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the internet."
The one billion download landmark comes four days ahead of the latest new product announcement from Apple. The computer firm is holding an invite-only event in California on Tuesday, with speculation that a much more advanced video iPod will be announced with a bigger screen, and touch screen navigation.