More than 3 billion songs have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store, according to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
. The service hit the 2 billion mark in January and topped 1 billion songs sold in February 2006. Thus, the download rate has jumped considerably in the past six months.
The store currently sports a catalog of more than 5 million songs, along with 550 television shows and 500 movies, according to Apple. The iTunes Store recently surpassed Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the U.S.
Give Me the Music
Since its inception, iTunes has tried a variety of new ways to entice customers to stay in one online location when gathering streaming media . The store recently announced special deals on tracks free of digital rights management encryption.
An option allows customers to complete an album for which they own several tracks at a reduced rate. Also, the much-anticipated iPhone device introduced last month includes built-in music player features and synchronizes to users' computers via iTunes software.
The macro trend here is that people are expecting access to content in whatever format they want it -- MP3, video, data file -- in any place at any time. These are customers who expect that "they can have pretty much what they want when they want it," Mike Goodman, director with Yankee Group's consumer research group, told MacNewsWorld.
Music Not the Only Game
The iTunes Store has expanded to include a variety of media types beyond music. The service has for some time served up podcasts, which are stored and distributed for free.
Alongside thousands of small-distribution, low-budget programs for niche interests are programs from large media outlets such as National Public Radio. Downloads of these shows are not included in the 3 billion figure.
More recently, with the advent of portable players capable of supporting video, the iTunes Store has begun carrying video podcasts, or "vodcasts." A little-known fact is that podcasts in text or PDF format also are distributed through the service.
The proliferation of content types on services such as iTunes is supporting what Goodman calls "a democratization of distribution" and has brought online media more toward the ideal of a free market.
This is not to say that all media available online should be free; the milestone, after all, is that 3 billion songs have been sold. However, the new file formats available for download and playing have "opened up a whole realm of content possibilities," he stressed.
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