Industry | Music Downloads |
---|---|
Founded | 2007 |
Defunct | 2009 |
Headquarters | New York, New York |
Parent | none |
Website | formerly SpiralFrog.com |
SpiralFrog was a very early music streaming service based in New York City that launched in the United States and Canada on September 17, 2007. SpiralFrog offered free and legal music downloads, all supported by advertising, and was the largest site of its kind in North America. On March 19, 2009, SpiralFrog terminated operations due to loan recalls. [1] While SpiralFrog was not successful in the end, it nonetheless helped shaped the digital music industry shift from the purchase to streaming models, and its ultimate revenue recovery
SpiralFrog was entirely supported by advertising, allowing free download of its music. The ads were presented in the form of banner ads much like any news website rather than in the form of popups or adware. Songs downloaded from the service could not be burned to a CD, put on more than two portable devices and would not work on Mac OS X or the Apple iPod, iPhone, or the Microsoft Zune. However, they would work with any digital audio player or music phone that supports WMA PlaysForSure subscription services. Customers had to visit the site at least once every 60 days and renew their license by signing in or downloading a song, and the songs would work for sixty days after the last license renewal. In the event that the license should expire, it could always be renewed at a later date to restore function to the tracks. For songs that were on portable devices, the device had to be synced with a computer once every 60 days to keep the songs active. In addition to music, Spiralfrog had 5000+ music videos also available for free at 300 kbit/s streaming or 1000 kbit/s if you chose to download it. Spiralfrog boasted approximately 800,000 songs upon its launch and offered more than 3 million tracks for download. When active Spiralfrog.com had 3,000,000+ songs and 5,000+ music videos available for free download, and at peak had more than 6,000,000 monthly visitors, and 2.6 million registered users.
SpiralFrog had licensing agreements with most major music owners [2] in the United States, Canada and in Britain.
On September 17, 2007, SpiralFrog.com formally launched in United States. Joe Mohen, then chairman and founder of SpiralFrog Inc. stated: "With SpiralFrog you know what you're getting ... there's no threat of viruses, adware or spyware; We believe it will be a very powerful alternative to the pirate sites." At initial launch, it offered 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos for download (by way of Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group). [3]
SpiralFrog utilized 128 kbit/s which is the standard for most digital music stores such as the Walmart digital music store or 192 kbit/s (for more complex songs that would otherwise sound distorted) Windows Media Audio files wrapped in Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM. DRM does not allow burning music to a CD but allows sideloading music to up to two portable audio devices. Music from SpiralFrog was not compatible with the Apple iPod or Microsoft's Zune. [4]
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs. WMA Pro, a newer and more advanced codec, supports multichannel and high-resolution audio. A lossless codec, WMA Lossless, compresses audio data without loss of audio fidelity. WMA Voice, targeted at voice content, applies compression using a range of low bit rates. Microsoft has also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store audio encoded by WMA.
Windows Media Player is the first media player and media library application that Microsoft developed to play audio and video on personal computers. It has been a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 9x, Windows NT, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile. Microsoft also released editions of Windows Media Player for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Solaris, but has since discontinued them.
Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC, in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to have the same running time as CD while storing audio information with minimal perceptible loss in quality. Improvements to the codec in the form of ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus, and ATRAC Advanced Lossless followed in 1999, 2002, and 2006 respectively.
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 TV shows, and 65,000 films. When it opened, it was the only legal digital catalog of music to offer songs from all five major record labels.
Puretracks was a Canadian online music store, which launched officially on October 14, 2003. Puretracks works as a behind-the-scene music partner. Now a division of Somerset Entertainment, owned by Fluid Music, Puretracks has U.S. and Canadian licensing agreements with all major labels and hundreds of independent labels worldwide—enabling them to offer well over three million top music tracks across every genre. The majority of music is sold at 256 to 320 kbit/s MP3 files.
FairPlay is a family of digital rights management (DRM) technologies developed by Apple Inc. for protecting videos, books and apps and historically for music.
AllOfMP3, MP3Sparks and MemphisMembers are brands of online music store that were operated by Mediaservices, Inc., a company founded in 2000 in Moscow, Russia. The stores formerly sold music encoded in standard, non-protected audio formats at a significantly lower cost than other online music stores. In 2008, the original AllOfMp3 site was replaced by a blog.
Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, digital rights management support, UI responsiveness, device performance, compatibility with Windows Media Player, synchronization performance, and so on. PlaysForSure certification was available for portable media players, network-attached digital media receivers, and media-enabled mobile phones. The PlaysForSure logo was applied to device packaging as well as to online music stores and online video stores.
Yahoo! Music was a brand under which Yahoo! provided music services including Internet radio, a digital music store, music streaming service, media player software, and original programming.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited was a music streaming service and digital music store by Yahoo! Music.
Urge was a discontinued online music distribution service run by MTV Networks. Urge was integrated into Windows Media Player 11.
MOG was a paid subscription online music service and blog network, where subscribers could listen to and read about music. Subscribers could play tracks available in its catalog on a variety of digital devices, including computers, handheld devices, Sonos systems and television. MOG also allowed users to access aggregated editorial content from music blogs, user posts, and in-house editors.
Zune was a software program that was developed by Microsoft for Windows that functions as a full media player, library, media streaming server, mobile device management, and interface for the discontinued Zune Marketplace. The software is used to sync with all devices with Zune functionality including the Zune 4, 8, 16, 30, 80, 120, Zune HD, Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft Kin. Zune devices work exclusively with the Zune software, which applies many design principles of Microsoft's Metro design language.
The online service imeem was a social media website where users interacted with each other by streaming, uploading and sharing music and music videos. It operated from 2003 until 2009 when it was shut down after being acquired by MySpace.
PassAlong Networks, also known as Tennessee Pacific Group, LLC, was a developer of digital media innovations and services located in Franklin, Tennessee. The company had a digital music library of three million licensed songs, two million of which were raw MP3 music files, and provided a series of products and services in the digital media marketplace.
Amazon Music is a music streaming platform and digital music store operated by Amazon. As of January 2020, the service had 55 million subscribers.
Total Music was a digital music distribution service created by Universal Music Group and Sony BMG. It was started in 2007 and closed down in 2009. The venture never actually resulted in any products or services used by consumers.
PlayNow was Sony Ericsson's download service for media that included music, games, ringtones, wallpapers and themes. It was introduced in February 2004 as a way for owners of SE phones to listen to and directly purchase ringtones. It was rolled out into 32 countries. The Sony Ericsson S700 was the first Sony Ericsson phone to come pre-loaded with PlayNow.
UltraViolet was a cloud-based digital rights locker for films and television programs that allowed consumers to store proofs-of-purchase of licensed content in an account to enable playback on different devices using multiple applications from several different streaming services. UltraViolet also allowed users to share access to their library with up to five additional people. UltraViolet was deployed by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), an alliance of 85 companies that included film studios, retailers, consumer electronics manufacturers, cable television companies, internet service providers (ISPs), internet hosting vendors, and other systems and security vendors, with the notable exceptions of Walt Disney Studios, Google, Amazon and Apple.
Didiom was a digital media company that specialized in the development of streaming media applications and wireless content delivery platforms. Built on peer-to-peer placeshifting technology, the company's flagship product allowed customers to stream their home computer's audio collection to their phone wirelessly, eliminating the need for data cables and memory cards. With two million songs under its management, Didiom previously launched an on-device music store that allowed customers to name their own prices for music downloads. In February 2011, Didiom was acquired by SnapOne, Inc.
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