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This article was posted by Stuart Johnston on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 11:08 am and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Free music on SpiralFrog = iTunes killer?

Just days after signing an agreement with Universal, SpiralFrog have announced that EMI have joined their new music download service [via Techcrunch]. In return for listening and watching advertisements users of SpiralFrog will be allowed to download music from Universal’s and EMI’s catalogues for free.This combined with the fact that Universal have announced their intention to buy BMG means that potentially 42% of the world’s music could be available for free on SpiralFrog, based on Universal having 12% market-share, BMG 13% and EMI 17% (source).There has been plenty of speculation as to whether SpiralFrog will be an iTunes killer but in my opinion Apple has nothing to worry about - for two reasons.Firstly, SpiralFrog have chosen not to support the iPod. Given that the iPod is by far and away the most popular portable music device (in the US) they are instantly introducing a technical barrier that rules out most of their potential userbase.Secondly, for SpiralFrog to overtake iTunes it will have to offer a utility factor greater than iTunes - that is the effort-to-reward ratio for using the service. iPod + iTunes is a pleasure to use - for very little effort (and a couple of pennies) the user is rewarded with a slick, attractive and easy to use interface, high quality downloads and automatic synchronisation with their iPod. Buying music on iTunes is very easy… (perhaps way to easy!).Compare this with SpiralFrog’s proposal. I imagine the interface will be usable but probably not as usable as iTunes. However of more concern is the effort the user will have to put in to getting music onto their portable player. Firstly, they’ll have to navigate through a system no doubt littered with advertising. Next they will have to listen/watch an advertisement before getting access to track. Once downloaded it then has to be loaded onto a portable music player and I can’t imagine this process will be as slick as iPod + iTunes. Finally, to keep hold of their music they’ll have to stop by the SpiralFrog website on a regular basis to be subjected to more advertising.It seems like an awful lot of effort for the reward of free music. I think I would rather fork 79p to Apple to download the track from iTunes - but then I’m an iPod user so I don’t have the option of using SpiralFrog - like 80% of the MP3-carrying-world!.

 

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  1. [quote]Given that the iPod is by far and away the most popular portable music device

    like 80% of the MP3-carrying-world![/quote]

    wtf?!

    in any case no propriety system is ever going to succeed for long

    blippa said on 6 September 2006 at 9:10 pm

  2. blippa - sorry. Should have checked my facts. The iPod is the most popular mp3 player in the US - not the world. According to Bloomberg anyway.

    As for propriety systems having a limited shelf life, what do you base your argument on?

    Stuart Johnston said on 6 September 2006 at 9:20 pm

  3. itunes might be good on the Mac, but it absolutely sucks on the PC.

    Miles said on 7 September 2006 at 7:41 pm

  4. Surely can you not just download from spirl frog, stick it on a CD so that you have it for your car, then if you want it on your ipod (like I will) rip it from the cd into Itunes…and bish bash bosh, you have it on everything you wanted.

    Or am I missing something? And I think itunes is ok, but to be honest I could cope without it.

    Matthew.

    Matthew Whitley said on 1 October 2006 at 9:33 am

  5. I was just browsing and i found your website,

    I am also curious to what may be happening when spiralfrog is launched.

    I managed to aquire the following domains when i heard the news,
    Please let me know what you think?

    www. spiralfrognews.com
    www. spiralfrogads.com
    www. spiralfrog.me.uk
    www. spiralfrog.org.uk
    www. crazyspiralfrog.com
    www. crazyspiralfrog.co.uk
    www. spiraltoad.co.uk
    www. spiralfrogmobile.com
    www. spiralfrogonline.com
    www spiralfrog.co.uk
    www spiralfrog.net
    www spiralfrog.org
    www. spiral-frog.net
    www. spiral-frog.org
    www. spiral-frog.eu
    www. spiralfrogmusic.co.uk

    Cheers,

    Paud

    Paud said on 13 October 2006 at 9:55 pm

  6. I just got my 2000t and all of my songs are skipping in iTunes, and I cant figure out why. If someone could help me out and tell me how to fix this I would really appreciate it because its driving me crazy. Thanks for the replys.

    Eddie said on 28 November 2006 at 7:47 pm

  7. have been looking forward to the release of spiralfrog for ages. gutted to find its not gonna work on itunes, surely there is a hack for this or will be one soon. i’d be interested to hear of it?

    Also, spiral forg have released there beta version but only to residents of canada. is there a way around this such as a proxy or similair, or will i just have to wait my turn.

    kingoftheimpossible said on 5 May 2007 at 8:21 pm

  8. yeah how annoying about the canada thing. damn swines. i have had a look 4 a hack but cant find one anywhere. any help would be appreciated.

    8fishy said on 13 May 2007 at 1:04 pm

  9. ipods are so the new and old thing.because they where here 1 or2 years ago.but i’m just happy i’m getting one for christmas.

    Amia said on 20 December 2007 at 2:37 am

  10. i have heard good things about spiralfrog

    dan said on 24 February 2008 at 4:17 am

  11. Spiralfrog is great!!!! I have an iPod, but am also now getting a sansa sadisk e250 because I want to be able to play the songs on a portable player!

    Jacob said on 30 June 2008 at 7:07 pm

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