Tuesday, September 18, 2007

SpiralFrog Jumps to Life

Much to my surprise free music download site SpiralFrog launched after months of delays. The website offers copy-protected music that won't play on an iPod or can't be burned on CD, and requires users to check in online at least once a month.

While I have been extremely skeptical of this business model given what companies must pay copyright holders to distribute their music, the company is rightly targeting its ads based on demographic profiles. This will ostensibly enable SpiralFrog to charge higher ad rates, but I'm not so sure that people who are too cheap to pay a buck to download music are high on advertisers' lists.

As much as streaming services such as Real's Rhapsody have a challenge in making money, the hurdles that SpiralFrog must overcome with a download service are immense. Someone is likely to break their copy protection, and with only one major label on board, SpiralFrog is seriously limited as a service.

The likelihood of SpiralFrog being a profitable and popular service are equal to that of the Kansas City Royals playing in a World Series. Don't hold your breath.

Source: The Associated Press

Posted By John Gartner at 10:12 AM
Permanent Link: SpiralFrog Jumps to Life | Comments (3)

(3) Comments on SpiralFrog Jumps to Life

It makes me sick to think that people posting "intelligent" articles for public consumption are incapable of proper writing.
1. The first sentence makes no sense upon first reading.
2. Brush-up on the usage (and difference) between 'to' and 'too' (hint: 'too' means 'also')
3. Comma splices are an epidemic.

Comments by Dennis : Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 11:49 AM

Dennis,

Consider this an open invite to contribute a guest editorial on MarketingShift. Feel free to either email me directly or post another comment here if you're interested. Sounds like you've got some well organized thoughts and I'd enjoy hearing them and letting you speak to the mshift audience.

jason [at] marketingshift.com

Best Regards,
Jason Dowdell
Founder MarketingShift.com

Comments by Jason : Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 12:06 PM

check out www.we7.com
- DRM free
- tracks to keep (dont have to revisit)
- great for new emerging artists
- backed by Peter Gabriel

Its still very very new so the content side is limited, however its growing significantly and the service itself I feel is better than spiral's.

Comments by Kurt : Monday, October 01, 2007 at 06:40 AM

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