“SpiralFrog, the pioneering ad-supported music service, quietly closed down on Thursday,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET.
“A source close to the company told CNET News that SpiralFrog has ceased operations and assets have been surrendered to the company’s senior secured note holders. SpiralFrog’s site went down about 4 p.m. PDT,” Sandoval reports.
“New York-based SpiralFrog made a splash in August 2006 by attempting to offer music free of charge to the public while supporting the site through ad sales,” Sandoval reports. “SpiralFrog is the second one-time high-flying ad-supported music service to shut down in recent months. Ruckus, which catered to college-age music fans, earlier this year closed down.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: On September 18, 2007, SpiralFrog’s launch day, Joseph Menn reported for The Los Angeles Times, “The record labels are ranging further in pursuit of permanent downloads on terms that aren’t dictated by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs.”
To which we responded: Since nearly everything that Steve Jobs touches turns to gold, perhaps the music cartels would do well to take Jobs’ dictation. It would certainly be preferable to dreaming about unending subscriptions to which nobody in their right mind wants to shackle themselves or participating in ‘FailuresForSure’ like this SpiralFrog debacle.
On the same day, Joe Mandese reported for MediaPost that Joe Mohen, chairman and founder of SpiralFrog, said the thing is aimed at ‘people who have more time and less money.’ ‘And they’re used to getting it for free,’ said SpiralFrog’s new vice president of marketing and sales, George Hayes, former Universal McCann honcho.”
We responded: Just what advertisers love, people with no money who want things for free. Who wrote SpiralFrog’s business plan, a group of preschoolers at snack time? No wonder they’re having trouble getting the thing off the ground; it doesn’t even fly on paper.
Ribbit.
