Spiral Frog?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yeah, I like the rent-to-own model of services like aol music (monthly fee to download and listen as much as you want on computer or player, $1/song to own it forver and burn it), but iPod is my chosen player and I know that the admittedly minor hassle of converting will none-the-less nearly nullify the convenience of unlimited downloads.

As much as I love when Apple sticks to its guns, that's one thing I'd like to seem them budge on. And I appreciate the existence of services like that stand a chance of putting pressure on them to do so. But a lot of them are going to have to try and fail before that ever happens, and I agree with BtD that until that actually happens, they're going to have a hard time getting by on ad revenue alone. Of course, if they've got clever people working for them they'll find a way to generate revenue with some secondary offering that compliments the service.

Long story short, if I had a wma capable player, I'd check it out but try not to get too attached to it lest I rue its likely demise.

[CoasterMatt]

I prefer eMusic.com

[Ghoulish Delight]

I considered emusic and definitely liked the unprotected files aspect. But the trade-off on selection was a problem. Just not enough stuff I wanted to buy.

[Prudence]

While I love emusic.com and their ability to introduce me to groups like Candypants and the Detroit Cobras, sometimes I want access to major label artists, too. And I'm not doing iTunes.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Of course, if they've got clever people working for them they'll find a way to generate revenue with some secondary offering that compliments the service.

As long as it doesn't involve click fraud. I suspect they will be on the watch list from the start since their sole means of revenue is PPC or PPI advertising. Any whif of click fraud and they'll be toast. Google withstood it and settled for a huge amount of money. And they are Google.

[BarTopDancer]

A review of SpiralFrog.

Turns out it doesn't work on the Zune either.

But music and video downloads are only available in Windows Media format. They can only be transferred to portable music players twice, and those gadgets need to support the copyright-protection technology. Zune and iPod owners are out of luck. It doesn't allow copying to a CD.

Snip

SpiralFrog membership must be renewed by taking a survey every 30 days, which includes questions about your experiences on the site. Otherwise your downloaded content will eventually expire — and you can't get any more songs until you renew.