Just to cleanse the palate, let's change the subject to a market in which Apple isn't the underdog, shall we? In the realm of digital downloadable music sales, the iTunes Music Store is zooming so far out in front of everyone else it's actually experiencing relativistic time dilation-- and we're only sort of kidding. Faithful viewer Scott Naness ran some numbers, and with the latest revelation that the iTMS recently sold its 125,000,000th song, he points out that the measured or extrapolated interval during which it's taken Apple to sell another 25 million songs keeps dropping precipitously-- from 231 days to 91 days to 73 days to 62 days to the most recent 52 days. Sales increases due to deeper market penetration, or time getting wonky because of the iTMS's near-light-speed travel? You be the judge.

Not that Apple shows any signs of slowing down; in fact, it just keeps coming up with more and more ideas to keep those engines roaring. The latest, as first pointed out to us by faithful viewer Pepe, is something we've been wondering about for a while: the iTunes Affiliate Program. Yes, it's finally here: affiliates who link to iTMS content from their web sites will reap five percent of any sales that result from said links. In other words, if we here at AtAT were to sign up, and you were to click on one of those goofy song references we occasionally sprinkle through our episodes for added zest, and then you were to actually buy the song, we'd be the happy recipients of a shiny nickel.

[LEGAL NOTE: By including our third public use of the phrase "shiny nickel" since August 25th, this scene hereby fulfills our legal obligation to the Society for Nickel Evangelism, as decreed by the U.S. District Court following our alleged involvement in the traffic incident which resulted in the SNE offices being "structurally compromised" by the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.]

Note, however, that we said "if"-- because Apple rejected our application to join the iTunes Affiliate Program, citing "a number of factors which may include: presence of Apple competitors on your Web site; Fit of Apple's messaging and branding with your Web site; traffic levels of your Web site; a well-defined Privacy Policy on your Web site." Since we don't show Dell ads like some other Mac-oriented sites we've come across and we get way more traffic than Apple's required 1,000 unique monthly visitors, either the anarchic tone of our Privacy Policy put them off or we just don't "fit" with Apple's "messaging and branding." Considering that certain unnamed third-party sites have told us in the past that they've almost been denied Apple ad revenue and press access to Macworld Expo simply for linking to this show, we're betting the prize is behind Door Number Two. (Hey, we're Evil™! Who knew?)

So apparently we won't be hearing the beautiful sound of plinking nickels when viewers make their iTMS purchases, which we'll have to classify as a Darn Shame. If you're desperate to turn your music purchases into AtAT-sustaining affiliate revenue, unfortunately instant gratification for 99 cents a pop isn't an option; you'll have to do the last-century thing and score full physical CDs from Amazon.com/Amazon.ca/Amazon.co.uk, living with the burdens of choosing your own digital music format and bitrate to work with any software or device you choose, ripping your own totally DRMless files by hand, and storing a disc that serves as little more than a pristine and lossless archival backup together with printed album art and song lyrics. Ooooo, what a grind. Sorry about that.