August 31st, 2006 
admin 
Spiral Frog will be launching in December and is promising to be an absolutely free music service. How will they accomplish this? You guessed it – advertising. Spiral Frog, formerly musicload, is not really vying for the iPod/iTunes market, though I’m sure they would love to have it. But this leaves some big questions in my mind. How restrictive will the DRM be? If you’re not vying for iPod/iTunes users, who are you targeting? What will be the quality of the service?
Spiral Frog is a digital downloading service based in New York. They will be offering the entire UMG, the world’s largest music company, collection online. That’s pretty bold. So, who in the world are they targeting? I think it’s pretty clear that they are targeting folks who download illegal music. They are targeting P2P networks. And what about iPod/iTunes compatibility? Not so much. DRM will limit the music to be placed on 1 computer and 2 mobile music devices. I don’t really get the DRM issue. You are offering a free music service. But, I’ve heard that the music stops playing if you don’t log into their service so many times per month to view ads. Huh? Are you kidding? I don’t think that will fly, but that’s me.
Here’s the deal. I talked the whole digital music issue with a friend, who is really into Indie music, months ago. We bounced possible ideas around and advertising was one of them. But I didn’t feel like there was enough value on both sides of that equation to make it work. I still don’t think there is enough value. I feel like someone needs to think of something completely out of the box. And that usually comes when someone else creates something entirely new. Rarely does that form out of the old models.
[tags]Spiral Frog, free online music, UMG[/tags]
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