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New service offers free, ad-supported MP3s

4 October 2009 22:43 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 5 comments

Free All Media has launched this week, proposing a new model for legal music downloads.

The company will use the tried-and-failed ad-supported model, but unlike SpiralFrog and others, the company will give users more interaction with the ads they see, as well as more choices.

CEO Richard Nailling explained this week, to Cnet, how the site will work, including the new nuances that they hope will separate them from other failed legal download sites.

Customers select the MP3 they want to purchase, as well as a "sponsor" that will, in theory, "buy" the track for them. They then watch an ad from that sponsor, about 18 seconds long, and afterwards, can download the MP3 they selected, with no DRM and at 256kbps bitrate.

The interesting part is what follows, as explained by the source: "Free All Music will then use the downloader's handle in other banner ads for that sponsor, which Free All Music will place around the Web using an (as yet undisclosed) third-party ad network, as well as through its own ad network, which will focus on music-oriented sites. In other words, you might be visiting CNET and see "MattR just downloaded 'Angry Chair' by Alice in Chains...sponsored by Converse." In this way, Free All Music will be able to sell multiple ads per download and perhaps earn enough money to cover the license fee for each song."

The model in itself sounds great, and you will be hard pressed to find anyone who won't take a free song for listening (or opening a new tab and ignoring) an 18 second ad. Free All Music knows this, and therein lies the catch. Users can only download up to 15 songs per month, which will stay the maximum until more advertisers sign on.

Permalink to this article | Topic: MP3 & Digital Audio

Record industry starts 'educational' progam to teach five year olds about piracy (4 October 2009)

Dell, Napster sign deal for music content on new PCs (2 October 2009)

Spotify offline now available to PC users (2 October 2009)

Sirius XM customers will pay fees for royalties (2 October 2009)

Freecom offers USB 3.0 external HDD (1 October 2009)

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Discuss this article!
Lothros (Junior Member) 4 October 2009 23:01
InB4Sevenproxies&Adblock+ [ + quote]
KillerBug (Senior Member) 5 October 2009 1:01
Was that an attempt at a malware ad? Current System: Windows 7 RC1, DFI M2RS, ATI 3870HD, Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600, Athlon 9950, 6GB Corsair DDR2, 3TB RAID 5, 750GB Raid-1, 500GB RAID-1, 640GB RAID-0 Boot, 3ware 9690SA, Adaptec 2610SA, Adaptec 1430SA, Intel Gigabit NIC (PCI), LG 20X Lightscribe DVDR, Coolmax 1200w Power Supply, Logitech G15(first edition), Logitech G5(Second Edition), modified dell poweredge 1800 server case. Overall configuration: Perfect chair, two 22" widescreens overhead, Logitech 5.1 Audio [ + quote]
Pnub (Newbie) 5 October 2009 12:48
no... dude, lothros is just saying there will be ways around the advertisements mentioned in the article. [ + quote]
Unfocused (Member) 5 October 2009 22:07
This does sound like an interesting concept. Given the amount of advertising that I currently ignore, I wouldn't think that ads such as "User XYZ123 just downloaded...." would affect me. [ + quote]
Mez (Senior Member) 8 October 2009 13:37
Sounds great to me. Good bit rate as well. [ + quote]