Universal Backs Free Music Rival To Itunes

[Guest Game of Chance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/business.../X6h6cQqhvc4L0A

[Msterbeau]

I heard about that on NPR today.

So... umm... Does everyone think they're going to make their money online through ads??? I can see that working for a certain percentage of businesses but that can't possibly support everything I see going to that model. There's only so much ad revenue.

It'll be interesting to see if people bite. There's a lot of restrictions. More then I'd ever want to deal with. The real killer though is that it's neither Mac nor IPod compatible. That's going to hurt them a LOT considering the dominance of the IPod in the MP3 player market.

[Guest Game of Chance]

I'd say for the age group that most advertisers want to hit (18-24 and even 13-18), this is a great way to do it. Buying habits are formed early.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Interesting. The "pay for it with ads" model has not worked well over and over in the online music distribution system. Its been tried a lot. People are used to listening to their stuff wherever they want, whenever they want, without ads. Will take a mindset shift more like that of television, and some form of true piracy control before it works well, which may be comming.