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SpiralFrog now the third largest legal music download site

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spiralfrog.pngSpiralFrog, Inc. crossed a major threshold with almost 850,000 registered users and is now positioned as the third largest legal music download site in the U.S. and Canada behind to iTunes and Rhapsody. The company also demonstrated further growth with traffic already surpassing two million unique monthly visitors for March.

SpiralFrog provides a comprehensive music experience that allows music fans to get songs, albums, music videos, music news, artist bios, reviews, discographies and album art, among other rich content features. SpiralFrog also lets users create playlists and use a Facebook application that allows them to track the most popular downloads on the site.

Originally posted on March 27, 2008 @ 10:17 pm

‘Eat all you can’ music from iTunes planned

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FT.com reports that Apple is in discussions with music companies to offer a radical business model that would give customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices. Truly radical, but Apple wouldn’t comment according to the report.

Originally posted on March 19, 2008 @ 11:21 am

LimeWire to go against iTunes

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Apple’s iTunes has another reason to worry this year. Popular peer-to-peer site LimeWire has launched its own online music store, following the move of other sites such as Napster and BitTorrent to go legit.

Currently in beta phase, LimeWire Store’s pricing structure is similar to iTunes – 99 cents per track. But there are also different payment plans like $10 for 25 downloads per month, $15 for 50 downloads, and $75 for 75.

However, it cannot yet compete against the massive collection of other online music stores. Initially, it holds more than 500,000 tracks mostly from indie artists but as Download Squad pointed out, it carries big names like Dolly Parton, Gloria Gaynor, Bell X1 and Josh Rouse.

LimeWires promises to update its collection and boasts it will add thousands of tracks daily from across all genres.

via AppScout

Originally posted on March 18, 2008 @ 6:25 am

Nine Inch Nails album nets $1.6 million on web sales

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Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor is now singing his way to the bank after netting $1.6 million (£800,000) from first-week sales of his new online venture. The rocker released his new instrumental album Ghosts I-IV in cyberspace and 800,000 fans paid anything from $1 to full price and more just to download the tracks. The $1.6 million also includes online orders for album-related products like limited-edition vinyl releases, CDs, and a dual-CD box set. The album will be released in record stores next month.

Originally posted on March 14, 2008 @ 6:22 am

RIM taps Will.i.am’s Dipdive to beat iPhone

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rim.gifIf you want to topple Apple’s iPhone and iTunes, you have to have that so so-called cool or X-factor. Well, it won’t be that easy. But this is exactly what Research in Motion has in mind in order to maintain its solid leadership in the smartphone segment and establish foothold in the consumer retail market.

The brilliant plan – partner with Dipdive, a combination of social networking site and music store created by Black Eyed Peas front man and a big Obama endorser Will.i.am. According to a news article, RIM will make this startup site available wirelessly on its BlackBerry.

RIM has every reason to be afraid of iPhone. Even though it controls the US smartphone segment with its 41% market share, iPhone was able to seize 28% market share of the US smartphone market 6 months after its launch.

This transition to attract the broader consumer market will be quite difficult given the strong association of BlackBerry handsets with business people and big corporations.

Originally posted on March 10, 2008 @ 10:37 am