The charts presented on this site are the charts published in the iTunes application. The charts are based on sale via iTunes either via the app on your PC, your iPhone or some other internet enabled-device.
iTunes is a digital media player application, used for playing and organising digital music and video files. iTunes is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple iPods and iPhones.
More importantly for this website, iTunes is integrated into Apple's online store for purchasing music, TV shows, movies and applications as well as managing subscriptions to (mostly free) podcasts.
More detailed information from Wikipedia: iTunes Application, iTunes Store.
iTunes charts update continuously. For example, they might be updated on an hourly basis. This site takes a chart at the end of the day and refers to that order of entries as the chart for that particular day. We collect data at the end of the day to ensure the most representative chart for the preceding 24-hour period. What you see on this site labelled 'latest' is actually yesterday's charts. So they're bound to be different. This site is more concerned with trends and behaviour over longer periods of time than just days or hours.
Because today hasn't ended. You can only see charts for days that are over. iTunesCharts.net collects the charts from iTunes around 10pm GMT and counts that listing as the chart for that day.
Good question! This happens at iTunes' end, it's not a peculiarity specific to iTunesCharts.net. They might be the same song but different versions. They might even be exactly the same song, but from different a albums, compilation or EP. When you buy a single track from an album, for instance, as far as iTunes is concerned that's a different track to the same song on a compilation album or on an EP.
The short answer is "we don't know". They're calculated and compiled by iTunes, we can only assume they're based on downloads. Given that the published charts are presented as "live" rather than covering any specified timeslot, there's obviously some kind of algorithm at play, but beyond that it's anybody's guess. Podcast charts are slightly different since these are charts of "channels" producing content on a rolling basis, rather than a finished product like an album or a song. Again, the chart is most likely based on downloads but may also be based on new subscriptions too.
iTunesCharts.net started collecting data in December 2009. Data before that date is unavailable. For UK-based song charts, www.bigtop40.com has been compiling weekly charts based on iTunes data for a little while longer.
From 28th April 2011 iTunesCharts.net no longer collected data for film and iphone/ipad apps. There's more details about that decision, if you're the reading type.
Yes, you're correct - between September 2011 and November 2012 this site was hosted on www.DownloadCharts.net. URLs on the old DownloadCharts.net domain should re-direct to the new domain for the forseeable future.
"Podcasts" is a portmanteau word combining the words "iPod" and "broadcast". Think of a podcast as a television or radio series which is watched or listened to via a computer or a media player like an iPod. If you subscribe to a podcast, new episodes will be automatically downloaded to your computer. Read more about podcasting at wikipedia.
We're only collecting data for a limited number of countries. We collect most data for UK and US charts. If we're not offering the chart you want from your country, iTunes can offer you current charts. If you want a country added to iTunesCharts.net, please ask! If we get enough requests for a particular country, we'll start collecting it. People power!
Indeed we do! every chart on the site has an associated RSS feed. There's a full listing here of the feeds that we offer. The feeds contain note-worthy news-snippets on each day's chart - it might be that there's a new number one, or a particularly high new entry... we always find something that's worth mentioning. Here's some sample news items...
If all you want is an RSS feed of a particular chart, use the iTunes Chart RSS Generator. It's ace.
Not at the moment. But all this data is available from iTunes in either JSON or XML. If you want an API and could put it to good use, please ask us.
Blimey, you're keen! Thanks for caring. To report a bug email us genie [at] iTunesCharts.net including a description of the steps required to recreate the error. If it's a browser bug, please include your browser name (e.g. Internet Explorer), browser version (e.g. 8), operating system (e.g. Windows Vista) and, if possible, a screen-grab. (For information relating to how to create a screen-grab, check out www.how-to-screengrab.org.)
The short answer: using the iTunes application. If you're using a new-ish Mac you'll already have it installed. Click on the iTunes button on our chart pages and the iTunes application should launch with the relevant download clearly visible. You'll need a credit card of some kind too. If the iTunes application isn't an option you can also buy a wide selection of mp3 and mpeg downloads from the Amazon online store.
Send us a message. The more polite you are, the higher the probability you'll get the satisfaction you so clearly crave.
Drop us a line. We'd be seriously delighted to hear from you. Send us your words of encouragement, ideas, requests, bug reports, drawings and whatever else you want to get off your chest.