Ever since Napster brought free MP3s mainstream — and subsequently garnered the wrath of the Recording Industry Association of America — the music industry has been reeling.
Music network Qbox is the very latest to join the fray of companies hoping to stake a claim in this market. It’s releasing its beta Friday. It gives users who search for musicians in Wikipedia or Google a Qbox icon on their screen, which they can click to then hear music to go with the artist information that comes up in their search results.
CBS-owned music discovery service Last.fm has also just announced a freebee that it hopes will give it an edge: Users can now listen to the full track of any song three times for free. The company hopes this promotion will prime users for its upcoming subscription service launch. How will Qbox and Last.fm fare against the competition?
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With such a variety of services on offer and so many developments within those services, it’s hard to tell. But in an attempt to give you some perspective on what the various free, or at least cheap, music offerings are — whether for the computer, mobile phone, or even the Nintendo Wii — we’ve compiled a list.
We tell you what the service does, what its business model looks like, and whether it lets users stream or download, among other things. The most useful categories may be 1) what we’ve termed “musicability,” or how easy can you find the song you want (this may be the best way to pick a potential favorite), and 2) “genre,” or how easy it is to search through a particular genre of music. Both are rated on a scale of 5.
Despite copyright restrictions, many of the sites manage to share music legally; others are dubious but are surviving anyway. We’ve most definitely missed several — we haven’t included most torrent or peer-to-peer (P2P) companies because there are simply too many of them and the majority operate illegally.
Many of the companies below have indexed their competitors’ sites — Songza started out scouring YouTube music videos for music, while Songbeat is a desktop application that uses Seeqpod’s engine.
We haven’t picked a personal favorite, in part because of the mind numbingness of the choices, but I will say that listening to music on the internet probably needs its own Crunchies. I was mystified by how many companies don’t allow searching by genre.
Where: Desktop to Browser Mobile: No
How: Stream
Musicability (how easy is it to find the song you want): 5 Genre (how easy is it to search by genre): 5
Business Model: Advertising by inserting audio ads into music stream, premium accounts, and affiliate sales
Financing: Y Combinator
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
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Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 4
Genre: 4
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, links to Amazon and iTunes
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, others
Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream
Mobile: Soon
Musicability: 4
Genre: 1
Business Model: N/A
Financing: Fully-owned subsidiary of FAST search company, which Microsoft recently bought
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English, Norwegian, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese
Where: Desktop/ Browser/ Wii
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 5
Business Model: Ad-based revenue
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser/ Desktop/ iPhone
How: Stream
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: N/A
Genre: N/A
Business Model: Targeted AdSense-like Ads
Financing: Company was originally Broadclip, inc. creators of MediaCatcher Facebook app. Received funding from Angel’s Lancaster Angel Network and the Investment Circle of York
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
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Where: Desktop
How: Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5+
Genre: 5
Business Model: Premium version to be released
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Questionable
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 3
Genre: 4
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, music store, label-related revenue
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 3
Business Model: N/A
Financing: Private
Status: Live Legal: Questionable
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5+
Genre: 2
Business Model: Links to buy songs/albums from Amazon and iTunes
Financing: $15.8 million total. $2.5m from Khosla Ventures and Bob Pittman. $13.3 million from IAC’s Ticketmaster. Other investors.
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
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Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 5
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, licensing deals with the big four Record Labels, Viacom, and others. Artists paid by popularity of music.
Financing: Known investors include Morgenthaler Ventures and Sequoia Capital
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 4
Genre: 5
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, purchase music through Amazon
Financing: N/A
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 5
Business Model: Music Store
Financing: $9 million from Bain and Ignition Ventures.
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5+
Genre: 5+
Business Model: Ad-based revenue
Financing: CBS acquired company for $280 million in May of 2007. Last.FM originally received $5 million in May 2006 from Index Ventures.
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
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Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 2
Genre: 2
Business Model: N/A
Financing: Private
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 4
Genre: 4
Business Model: N/A
Financing: Privately funded — features former execs from Sony, Walmart, and Yahoo
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 3
Genre: 2
Business Model: Album sales, future revenue from ringtones and ads.
Financing: Undisclosed Angel Investors
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Desktop to Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 4
Genre: 0
Business Model: N/A
Financing: $17.4 million from Ignition Partners, Voyager Capital, GF Capital, and Intel Communications.
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
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Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 3
Business Model: N/A
Financing: $1.2 million 3.2 million from Undisclosed angel investors
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Desktop / Browser/ Playstation 3/ Nintendo Wii
How: Stream/ Download music
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 5
Genre: 3
Business Model: Unlimited tracks when upgraded to premium locker
Financing: CEO Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com, Linspire, and SIPphone
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: N/A
Genre: N/A
Business Model: N/A
Financing: N/A
Status: Private beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): French, English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download as artists allow
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 5
Genre: 5
Business Model: Ad-based revenue
Financing: MySpace’s parent company, Intermix, was purchased by News Corp for $580 million.
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Turkish, others
Where: Desktop — Windows/ OSX / Linux
How: Stream
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 4
Genre: 4
Business Model: Ad-based revenue
Financing: $55 million from BBV, Ansenio, and Debaeque Sequel
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese
Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 4
Genre: 4
Business Model: N/A
Financing: Backed by Morgenthaler Ventures
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English, Japanese, French, Spanish
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 5
Genre: 3
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, $3/mo without ads. Users can purchase music on Amazon/ iTunes
Financing: $20.8 million from Labrador Ventures, Shelby Ventures, WaldenVC, and Crosslink Capital
Status: Live
Legal: Questionable
Language(s): English
Where: Mobile
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: Yes (Only)
Musicability: N/A
Genre: N/A
Business Model: N/A
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Desktop/ Browser
How: Stream Mobile: No
Musicability: TBA
Genre: TBA
Business Model: TBA
Financing: Private Angel Investors
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser/ Wii
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 0
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, Amazon powered MP3 store
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download as artists allow
Musicability: 3
Genre: 3
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, artists can pay to be featured
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 4
Genre: 0
Business Model: N/A
Financing: $5 million from undisclosed investors. Lawrence Berk Lab owns five percent stake.
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Languages(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 4
Genre: 0
Business Model: Ad-based revenue
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Questionable
Language(s): English
Where: Desktop/ Browser
How: Stream/ Download for a fee
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 5
Genre: 5
Business Model: Ad-based revenue, upgrade to $7.50/mo subscription-based downloadable service
Financing: $53.5 million from Austin Ventures, Mission Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Rho Ventures
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Desktop
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 4
Genre: 0
Business Model: Upgrade to songbeat pro, ad-based revenue
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Questionable
Language(s): English, Spanish, German, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Swedish
Where: Browser
How: Stream
Mobile: No
Musicability: 5
Genre: 0
Business Model: N/A
Financing: Founded by Humanized
Status: Live
Legal: Questionable
Language(s): English
Where: Browser/ Desktop
How: Stream (video only) / Download
Mobile: Yes
Musicability: 4
Genre: 5
Business Model: Ad-supported revenue, signed with EMI and Universal Music Group. Record labels get share of ad-revenue.
Financing: $12 million in debt and financing.
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Desktop to Browser/ Browser
How: Stream/ Download personal music
Mobile: No
Musicability: 3
Genre: 1
Business Model: N/A
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download — artist controlled
Mobile: No
Musicability: 3
Genre: 1
Business Model: Ad-based revenue
Financing: N/A
Status: Live
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download
Mobile: No
Musicability: 3
Genre: 4
Business Model: 10-second audio clip ad-based revenue
Financing: $6 million from Eden Ventures, Spark Ventures, Peter Gabriel
Status: Beta
Legal: Yes
Language(s): English
Where: Browser
How: Stream/ Download (some videos, or with an open source downloader)
Mobile: Not yet
Musicability: 5
Genre: 3
Business Model: Google-based ad revenue
Financing: Google bought for $1.65 billion.
Status: Live
Legal: Mostly
Language(s): Major languages
David Adewumi, a contributing writer with VentureBeat, is the founder & CEO of http://heekya.com a social storytelling platform billed “The Wikipedia of Stories.”
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