Fan Force

Recently I was invited to beta test a new music service called we7. Over the next few weeks Fan Force will be including part of our clients catalogs, at which time I will give you a full assessment of how the system is working.
we7 provides users with two options to gain access to tracks. You can either buy the track at the normal 99 cent price point, or you can get the track for free. The only catch is that the free tracks will come with a “pre-roll” ad. The ad will stay attached to the song for some set period of time, currently they are testing at 4 weeks, after which time the user is free to have the track ad-free and DRM-free.
I would be very interested in seeing how people take to this service. Ad-supported music is definitely a different concept, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we7 found itself become more like an on-demand internet radio station. Perhaps instead of each track being ad-supported, one in every three tracks you play are ad-supported.

Either way, it does open the door to an interesting concept. One in which music is no longer a commodity and is in fact simply free media like news. If we7 can successfully make labels happy by getting their money from advertisers as well as the consumers that still want to pay for their music, they may be on to something.

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