Gadgetopia

According to a New York Post article,

Ronald McDonald is stealing Pepsi’s thunder. Less than a month after Pepsi announced a blockbuster deal to give away 100 million downloads from Apple’s iTunes music service to its customers, … McDonald’s plans to give away up to 1 billion songs in a marketing campaign, according to sources familiar with the matter.

That’s 1 Billion. With a ‘B’.

According to the Post, this is “a dramatic move that gives a thumbs up to the music industry’s efforts at creating legal alternatives to file sharing.” Being realistic, the Post says that “because not all customers will take advantage of the offer, McDonald’s actual spending on the campaign will probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” But still…

What surprised me is that McD’s will be paying market price (99 cents) for each song, and Pepsi did the same. I would’ve assumed that there would be some discount involved between Apple and Pepsi/McD’s. After all, Apple is likely only paying a pittance to the artists for each song sold, and given the volume involved… Even if Apple were to not charge a thing to Pepsi/McD’s, what better way to get people to try the system and get them hooked? Drug dealers do it all the time (or so I’m told.)

But they’re getting market price. Wow!

That ought to put a nice shine on Apple’s annual report.