Alles over Peter Gabriel Tries Ad-Supported Music Downloads; Launches We7 | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | PaidContent.org | 2007-05-03 04:41:32
Should have told you about this earlier ... musician Peter Gabriel has teamed with technology entrepreneur Steve Purdham and VC John Taysom to launch Oxford, UK -basedWe7, an ad-supported music download platform. Ten-second ads targeted by various demos are grafted to the front of tracks and albums, allowing advertising to reach users offline. (The proprietary technology is called MediaGrat.)The ads remain "glued" for four weeks.
All music is DRM free and can be played or shared on any MP3 device. According to the company, after sharing, the ads changed to match the customer. Revenue from the ads will be used to pay license fees. Purdham, who founded SurfControl plc, is CEO. Taysom founded the Reuters Greenhouse Fund. This isn't Gabriel's first music outing. He funded and launched OD2; it was sold to Loudeye, which in turn sold it to Nokia last year. Release.
First look: The registration process gives a hint of how ads will be targeted: mandatory fields include gender, year of birth and zip code. Service is limited now to sample downloads; artists include Dave Matthews, Herbie Hancock, Hall & Oates, Coolio. Oddly, no Peter Gabriel. The full community site is due for launch this summer. The company is counting on momentum to increase its catalog.
-- The downloaded songs start with a promo for We7 as a placeholder for ads. This works in theory--listening to one ad is ok--but could get tedious in a playlist.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~3/113696285/
Alles over Freedom Costs A Buck-Oh-Five: Peter Gabriel's We7 Music Download Service, Free With "Grafted" Ads | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Gizmodo | 2007-04-30 18:11:38
Peter Gabriel is a human-rights champion, a global entrepreneur and a technology aficionado, not to mention the owner of lots of prized (and copyrighted) content, so it's not surprising that he's drawn to that cruel mistress, online music downloading. In search of fairness, Gabriel's company We7 has launched an ad-supported free-download model, or, as they themselves put it:
With a passionate team, a breathtaking vision and the 'pat.pending' technology to 'graft' relevant advertising/messages to music and video downloads, we're all set to create a music download revolution.
Jump for details and, oh yes, free samples.I thought graft was for politicians and burn victims, but it also means 10 seconds of sponsorship at the beginning of every DRM-free 128-kilobit MP3, according to The Register. The report added that advertisers would pay We7 what sounds like an unreasonable £0.30 to £0.60 per download (that is, up to $1.20 per song) and that listeners could earn the right to skip the ad after listening to it a few times. How many times, exactly? Three, four or five.
While it's unclear what kind of label support We7 has, the site has posted free samples, including tracks from Coolio, Dave Matthews Band and Hall & Oates, though not, strangely enough, from Mr. Gabriel himself. All songs are tagged with 10-second We7 promos. They're not so bad. In fact they sound like radio station identifications. But let's face it, if advertisers are really going to cover your $1 per song, they will most likely craft 10-second ads that hit you like a sledgehammer. – Wilson Rothman
About We7 [We7 via The Register]
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/freedom-costs-a-buck_oh_five/peter-gabriels-we7-music-download-service-free-with-grafted-ads-256407.php
Alles over Peter Gabriel Wants You to Re-Shock the Monkey | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2006-10-19 07:19:28
PreacherTom writes "The party line for the music industry has been clear: discourage music downloads at all cost. However, singer Peter Gabriel is taking things in a different direction. In order to promote his own label, he is actually encouraging people to not only download his music, but also adapt it into something more modern. In doing so, he actually posted a sample pack of Shock the Monkey consisting of vocals and other pieces of the original multitrack recording. Some in the music business would call this the commercial equivalent of hiring kidnappers to babysit. In actuality, Gabriel is pleased with the results."
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/38721503/article.pl
