Spiral Frog?
 

This website was in the news this morning, described as a free download site (with gobs of advertisement-based DRM.)

Has anyone else heard about this? Is it great, once you get past the advertising questions? Or is it the very essence of evil, monitoring your every key stroke 'til the end of time?

Concept sounds interesting but a few things concern me:

Not sure how that will deter people from posting copies of songs and videos.

It sounds like a free version of Napster or Rhapsody. With those two, you are basically renting the music and when you stop paying for the subscription the music ceases to work.

It doesn't matter if it's the very essence of evil, monitoring your every key stroke 'til the end of time. It won't work (the music, not the evil. I'm sure the evil will work just fine).

Ya, that too. But I was waiting for someone else to say that.

There are ways around Rhapsody and Napster. I'm sure there will be ways around this too. But I don't see it flying like they are thinking it will.

I was seeing the non-iPodness of it as a bonus.

No iPod, no deal. It's quite the road block for them, I'd think, not being compatible with the industry leader.

Ok, but you have to consider that the iPod is the industry leader in portable audio players and it doesn't look like that is going to change any time soon. With Spiral Frog not supporting the iPod it is missing a huge customer base. Yes, it is free to the user but the advertisers are making their revenue either through a PPC (pay per click) or PPI (pay per impression) model. Without the traffic the advertisers don't make money. Without making money, they pull advertising. Without advertisers, Sprial Frog won't exist.

Finally, to quote myself:

If you're happy with "renting" music then go for it. I don't think anything malicious is behind it. It has the backing of Sony to do this with their music so the RIAA won't be showing up at your door.

I don't get the incompatible with iPod - I mean my ipod mostly carries MP3s, which seems to be the preferred media for sharing - so I'm guessing this means they're using some other proprietary format? So sharing my files involves first converting them?

Doomed I say.

Maybe wma. I think that is the only format an iPod can't handle. Then of course you'd just need a wma to MP3 converter. I'm sure there are or will be ways to play it on an iPod. If the iPhone can be cracked in a month or 2 after it was released this is just icing.

Yeah, but it means more work. People will make concessions for convenience - I'm not sure what the benefit is for this service