Facebook schools success with iTunes giveaway

By Simon Aughton

Posted on 26 Jul 2006 at 14:56

The world's number two social networking site is giving away 250 million iTunes downloads in a back-to-school promotion.

Facebook will hand out one million sampler packs each week for 10 weeks, each pack containing 25 songs pre-selected from a variety of genres.

The site currently has around 13 million unique users, around a quarter of the figure for the leading networking site, MySpace. However unlike its rival, which opens its doors to any passing surfer, Facebook is restricted to education institutions, registered corporate and not-for-profit organisations and the military.

Such is its cachet in US colleges that a 2006 survey listed it as the second most 'in' thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and losing only to the iPod, whose popularity it now seeks to exploit.

Its endorsement of paid-for downloads contrasts with its backing for the Wirehog peer-to-peer file sharing technology, which restricts access to shared files to Facebook members. Potentially this prevents the music and movie industries from monitoring traffic in copyright material, a concern that was raised at the time by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).