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Free MP3s... If You Sit Through An Ad
from the interesting-model...-but... dept
I've seen all sorts of business models involving "free, but ad supported" music, but none of them really seem sustainable. This latest one is different, but I'm still not sure it has a chance. Rather than the typical "play music and have ads off to the side somewhere" model that most take, Free All Music, gives you a chance to download DRM-free MP3s... if you first watch a video ad. They even let you pick what sponsor you want to let "buy you" the music (and then, that advertiser gets to put your user name in future ads, noting that you downloaded the music).
While this is a more creative use of advertising that probably has more value to the advertiser than the typical ad-supported music sites (where most people just ignore the ads), it still seems likely to have some serious problems. First, the site is betting that consumption habits on such a site would be the same as iTunes -- 15 songs over the course of three months -- and is looking for ad deals to support that. But... that assumes that as the price drops from $1 to "time spent watching an ad" consumption wouldn't go up. Without the monetary barrier, it seems likely that consumption would increase significantly.
On top of that, I don't really see how the economics work, given traditional models in both the music and ad industry. It's not that those models necessarily make sense (in fact, I'd argue neither make sense), but it's what both sides will expect. On that front, you've got the record labels, who are used to getting approximately $0.67 per downloaded song. Assuming that needs to be made up by the ad (and even ignoring any profit for the site), then every single ad shown needs to cost that same $0.67. Translated into traditional ad terms, that's a CPM of $670. Yikes. I don't know any advertiser will to pay anything close to that -- even if it's targeted and you have a half decent chance of the person paying attention. Most CPM ad rates online these days are in the sub-$5 area. Convincing advertisers to jump to a $670 CPM on an unproven model? Good luck.
Finally, even if it's "free" it sounds pretty inconvenient. The fact is that people do have alternatives, such as file sharing networks. While they're not legal, they don't require you to waste a bunch of time before you can get the music you want to listen to. I'm sure some people would use it, but not enough to really matter long term.
While this is a more creative use of advertising that probably has more value to the advertiser than the typical ad-supported music sites (where most people just ignore the ads), it still seems likely to have some serious problems. First, the site is betting that consumption habits on such a site would be the same as iTunes -- 15 songs over the course of three months -- and is looking for ad deals to support that. But... that assumes that as the price drops from $1 to "time spent watching an ad" consumption wouldn't go up. Without the monetary barrier, it seems likely that consumption would increase significantly.
On top of that, I don't really see how the economics work, given traditional models in both the music and ad industry. It's not that those models necessarily make sense (in fact, I'd argue neither make sense), but it's what both sides will expect. On that front, you've got the record labels, who are used to getting approximately $0.67 per downloaded song. Assuming that needs to be made up by the ad (and even ignoring any profit for the site), then every single ad shown needs to cost that same $0.67. Translated into traditional ad terms, that's a CPM of $670. Yikes. I don't know any advertiser will to pay anything close to that -- even if it's targeted and you have a half decent chance of the person paying attention. Most CPM ad rates online these days are in the sub-$5 area. Convincing advertisers to jump to a $670 CPM on an unproven model? Good luck.
Finally, even if it's "free" it sounds pretty inconvenient. The fact is that people do have alternatives, such as file sharing networks. While they're not legal, they don't require you to waste a bunch of time before you can get the music you want to listen to. I'm sure some people would use it, but not enough to really matter long term.
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Good luck.
This got me thinking - What the recording industry expects and what really is available are so far out of whack, it's mind-boggling.
The recording industry wants you to sign up for online music (Well, actually, they would probably prefer you buy a brand-new CD), put in credit card/paypal info and then go through menus to select songs for download.
Or, you can go to a bittorrent tracker and get entire discographies with a couple of mouse clicks and no personal information whatsoever.
I just can't imagine how this is going to end.
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Re: Good luck.
I can imagine it for you! It will end with the eventual arrival of a 'music industry' which would be unrecognized as such by members of the music industry of today.
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Re: Re: Good luck.
but your answer's much better :D
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Re:
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CPM
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/25/lets-kill-the-cpm/
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An idea
The technology is so cheap and easy, that it should be considered normal, and commonplace that kids exiting middle school be able to have a CD of their performance/s.
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Re: An idea
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Convenience
I don't know about that. Granted, I never did spend copious amounts of time on file sharing networks, but I do remember trying to find something and having to wade through a lot of bad data (e.g., incorrectly or intentionally misnamed files); plus if you're talking a peer-to-peer network, the file download performance can vary greatly depending on who has the file and their connection speeds.
If they can eliminate a lot of that hassle, sitting through a minute of advertising could be worth it, especially for someone like me who doesn't know Bittorrent like the back of his hand and can locate and download a file faster than you can think of it.
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67ยข per ad view, huh?
Here's a sample ad called "Behold the delights of Vista".
It's actually pretty well produced.
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trueanthem
So far the site appears to only have independent bands.
It's an interesting business model with a presumably cheaper CPM. While I expected the ads to be incredibly annoying I have found that they aren't that noticeable. It's not necessarily the answer but it is another model trying to make it work.
www.trueanthem.com
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More than likely because it won't actually BE an "industry"...
lol
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Sounds Good
The deal-maker would be who's getting the profits off the ads. Artists? HELL YES.
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I've used it
1. Some of the ads are lame, some are really cool.
2. They're only 15 seconds long.
3. Once you get the song, and you listen through 4 minutes of music, you don't even remember having watched an ad.
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ads? why bother?
http://www.frynge.com/music.htm
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