The name SpiralFrog won’t mean much to the average UK mobile user. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with Jamster. SpiralFrog is a US company that’s just launched a free music downloads service supported by advertising. You get songs from famous bands for free, and the advertisements shown while you download them pays for it.
That’s one trend. Now think about the way mobile companies - operators and handset manufacturers alike - are keen to make mobile music a rival for Apple’s iTunes. All the operators have their own dual-download services, for example, while Nokia is preparing to launch its Nokia Music Store.
Yet it’s clear that for the most part, these mobile music services are copying iTunes. Imagine if they took a lead out of SpiralFrog’s book instead...
This is just a half-baked theory, of course, but it’s got substance to it. The reason so many people continue to download pirated songs using P2P technology like BitTorrent is because, well, they want free music. The whole idea behind companies like SpiralFrog (and to be fair, it’s an idea that’s yet to prove itself) is that instead of forcing people to pay up, why not find a way to offer them legal free music?
You can see how this would work on mobile. You sign up with, say, Vodafone for a music downloads service, which lets them show you adverts on their portal, but also send you a limited number of text or MMS adverts over the course of a month. You’d download unlimited free songs from the service, and your tastes would be used as a basis for the ads sent to you.
For example, if you download lots of dance music, you might be sent m-flyers for clubs in your area. If you like shouty guitar rock, you might get ads for skatey clothing retailers. That kind of thing.
The mobile operators are all keen to explore mobile advertising at the moment, so this would fit into their strategies. They could still sell regular downloads for people who don’t want to receive advertising. But they’d have a clear point of difference with Apple and iTunes, particularly for the teenagers who’ve shunned iTunes to carry on with their illegal downloading.
Ad-funded mobile music: we think it’s a good idea. What do you think?
Agree wholeheartedly. Ad-supported music and mobile phones are a natural fit. I cover Ad-Supported Music exclusively in my blog: Ad-Supported Music Central at http://ad-supported-music.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Marc Cohen | 18 September 2007 at 05:29 PM