Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

We7.com is a new type of online music store. Instead of selling songs, they place ads at the beginning of mp3 files. For the first 30 days you have the song, the ad will play. After 30 days, you will be allowed to download an ad-free version of the same song. Artists get paid by the advertisers and the users get free music. We7’s business model is similar to traditional radio stations. You get to listen to music will brief advertisements interspersed.

I am all for music without digital rights management locking you into hardware and software so I figured I would check out We7.com and see what music is available. After a short registration process, I was able to log in and view the pretty small catalog totaling only 20 songs. The artists did include Dave Mathews, Hall and Oates (I cannot believe they are still around), and Coolio. I downloaded “American Baby” by Dave Mathews, which had a brief advertisement at the beginning of the file.
WE7.com is clearly a work in progress. From its website:

Eventually, our MediaGraft engine will also deliver the power for our downloaders to choose the type and style of ads that are attached to their music choices so the ads are increasingly relevant.

This will increasingly lead to the tuning of ads so that they are personalised and localised to the requirements of each advertiser and downloader.

Also the downloader has the choice after a period of time (4 weeks) to remove the ad/message. As We7 gathers momentum we will also be increasing the choice of what style and type of ads/messages gets linked to the music that is downloaded.

Basically, We7 is going to provide targeted advertising for free music. The artists get half of the ad revenue from their songs being downloaded. The ads were not too annoying. I think people will be willing to tolerate ads on a mp3 player but not on a home stereo system.