ad space

Spiralfrog, the ad-based music download service, has finally opened its doors for business. The music industry has been trying different ways to increase revenues, especially online.

Spiralfrog boasts over 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos available at launch. Although 800,000 sounds impressive, it has a long way to go to catch up to iTunes and even Emusic.

SpiralFrog is able to offer songs for free by requiring the user to view ads in order to download the music, and has a revenue-sharing deal with the labels. The music catalog right now revolves around Universal Music Group. EMI also is offering songs with SpiralFrog, as are a number of independent artists and music labels. Big name artists like Gwen Stefani and Fergie are available for download so that is a good sign.

I tried out the service to see how it performs. Overall, I think it works fairly well. Spiralfrog does make you download their own “download” software, which is kind of annoying but I guess pretty standard. You need to use Windows Media Player 10 or higher. Mac users need not apply.

The service requires the user to log in and view ads at least once every 30 days. On the front page, there is a counter that tells you how many days you have left before you have to “renew” for free. You also cannot burn the songs to CD or transfer it to an iPod.

Sprialfrog has two things not working in its favor right now: 1) a limited catalog of songs and 2) no iPod compatibility. New songs apparently are right around the corner but the iPod issue might be a deal breaker for the college crowd.

del.icio.us | Digg it | reddit | StumbleUpon |

Enjoyed the post? Subscribe to the full feed for daily updates.

Related Posts on Floppyhead.com:

  • Snagfilms | Original Documentaries Distributed Via the Internet
  • Advertising-based downloads to fight digital piracy?
  • Watchmusichere.com | Cinemanow Re-launches Music Video Store
  • Universal to Sell DRM-free Music Everywhere Except iTunes Music Store
  • 4 Responses to “Spiralfrog Launches | Download Music for Free”

    1. on 09 Oct 2007 at 3:11 pm Gary

      really popular program to get free music and earn money for bloggers. Bloggers can also earn money with online music stores that offer free music as a part of promotional program. This way you attract traffic, get more returning visitors and get paid if your visitors register with music sites. So as you can see it’s slightly different from ordinary affiliate program.
      how to start this and earn good money Look at blogger-earn-money.blogspot.com

    2. on 20 Dec 2007 at 4:04 pm Hollie Dustin

      We were excited to see the launch of SpiralFrog…we compared it to the other music download sites and you can see our results here: http://www.songpops.com

    3. [...] love it when companies or websites promote free digital media. The internet is a powerful tool to reach a lot of people with relatively low overhead. Movie [...]

    4. on 18 Aug 2008 at 3:12 am Bob

      Please add link for my downloads mp3 site: http://www.add-sound.com

    Trackback URI | Comments RSS

    Leave a Reply