In a rather impressive announcement yesterday, Steve Jobs and his Apple Store reached the 1 billion songs-download mark.  The achievement is a milestone for the number alone (as well as $1 billion in song revenue created for Apple), but it is more significant in the overall landscape.  Just seven years ago, music pirating was reaching college campuses nationwide.  When the Apple store launched, they were able to convince these former pirates to download their music legally for cheap.  It also created a technological wave of buying music online for one's mp3 player as opposed to buying the CD and ripping it later. 

Also of note, Apple has surpassed more then 15 million video downloads since October.  Apple has changed the way people conduct business and allow consumers to watch and listen to media on their own time.  This milestone is a celebration for what they have been able to accomplish thus far.  It is also rather cool of them to give the person who downloaded the 1 billionth song to receive 10 iPods and a $10,000 gift card.

Links:
Apple's Announcment
Wall Street Journal