Mike Butcher

Spiral Frog will make us watch adverts before downloading the music track to one PC and two portable devices, while remembering to log in at least once a month, in order to retain access to the music we've already watched adverts in exchange for. MusicBites thinks this sounds a bit like all those dumb businesses during the late 90s which tried to play 15 second to 30 second adverts at callers in exchange for free or cheaper calls. Do ANY of those companies still exist? No. Will you really want to watch an ad EVERY TIME you want to download a track? No. I predict the sacking of a number of Universal executives and a relaunch in under a year.

Technorati Tags: Musicbites, Spiralfrog

AOL, the most boring of all ISPs, is jumping into online music, after purchasing Musicnow.com. They’ll be offering a subscription music service similar Napster, Yahoo, and others. Cost? $10 a month for unlimited subscription downloads, and $15 if you want to transfer them to a compatible DAP. Will it work? Maybe. AOL is more “mainstream” than Napster for instance.

Barney Wragg, vice president of eLabs at Universal Music International, told MusicBites at the launch of the new video iPod, that the new iPod made the business of downloading both music and videos just plain “simple”. Plus, the new iMac was a potential TV-killer. “I had been thinking about getting a Windows Media Centre at home, plugged into the TV screen. But now it’s definitely going to be an Apple,” he said.

It’s like when they invented Quark Xpress. Or the photocopier. Wired thinks there’s a podcasting goldrush on. Well, maybe. Podcasters are mining everything from commercial sponsors to paid guest appearances in the quest for profitability.

Music Labels Finally Cash In On Videos – Forbes: MTV and Warner Music Group have signed a mobile content deal in the US. The idea is to do what music companies did with music videos when MTV started – use mobile videos to sell music. Duh. See also Business Week: Warner Music, MTV sign licensing deal

Playlouder, has licensed acts from SonyBMG, the world#039s second largest record label, and is confident that the other two big record labels, Universal and EMI, will follow suit.