Tag: ad-supported
Google launching free, legal, music downloads… in China
Internet giant Google today launched a service that provides completely free, legal downloads of songs from all four major labels. The caveat? It’s only available in China. Damn.
There will be over 350,000 tracks available at launch, from both Chinese and Western markets. Users will be able to search by artist and song name, but also by the level of ‘beat’ in the song, and its ‘instrumentality’, whatever that is.
Google’s making the move due to massive levels of piracy in the world’s most populous country. The search engine lags behind its competitor Baidu in the country, mainly thanks to Baidu’s MP3 search functions. This launch should help Google compete in a market where 99% of music consumed is illegal.
Google’s free music service (via Reuters)
We7 goes ad-free between Christmas and New Year
In an attempt to grab some of the marketshare back off Spotify, web-based ad-supported music streaming service We7 has announced that between Christmas and New Year, all their ad-supported music won’t have.. er… ads. It’ll basically be un-supported music. A big money sink, I should imagine, but hopefully a big draw to their audience.
The company has assured us that it’ll still be paying royalties, so if you’re a songwriter, then don’t worry, you’ll still get your December cash to pay for those presents. However, even We7 without ads probably won’t tempt me away from my beloved Spotify. Sorry guys.
Related posts: EMI adding over 400,000 new tunes to We7’s free streaming library | Spotify – stream all the music you could ever want
T-Mobile launching free ad-supported mobile games
Despite my slightly negative perception of mobile games, this seems to be good news. T-Mobile has announced today that its customers will get full, free mobile games, in exchange for watching some adverts.
The first game to be available is Poker Million II, which is playable if customers watch two full-screen ads before and two full-screen ads after the game. The client software automatically detects which games will be compatible for your device, and won’t offer you anything you can’t play.
IBM adds advert serving to DVD spec – film watching is DEAD as a hobby
In a move that sounds like they’re trying to kill off DVD on purpose and force everyone to turn to one of those boring new HD formats, IBM has patented an advert delivery system that can pause DVDs so you have the pleasure of watching an advert.
It’s like they’ve examined the strengths of the DVD format, then created a feature designed specifically to destroy it…
