Music site We7.com charts success

How-do.co.uk, Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Online music site, We7.com, the brainchild of Cheshire businessman Steve Purdham and rock star Peter Gabriel is aiming to double users in 2009. The venture allows music fans to listen to music for free, but each track is preceded by an advert. With close to a million users already, they’re aiming to hit 2m by the end of the year. Purdham, the former chief executive of Surfcontrol, told How-Do that the whole thing has proved "irrationally seductive."

"It’s all come together through fate. We [Purdham and Gabriel] first heard of the idea in 2006/2007 and we went in as investors, but I ended up wanting to run it." Describing it as a "work in progress," Purdham admits that it’s been a difficult 18 months to get everything in place. "We had to answer 3 questions. Can you get the music? Would an audience come and would advertisers pay the right rate to sustain it? So far we’ve only answered the first 2. We’ve got increasing numbers of unique hits and subscribers and 3.5m tracks online, so now we can go to advertisers to give them what they want."

As previously reported, one advertiser is Littlewoods. "We tell advertisers to forget the music, just tell us what demographic they’re aiming for and we’ll find the right songs. We can do it by age, location, gender, or jazz, blues and so on. We don’t link ads to specific artists." The majors have also now come on board: Music site We7.com charts success "I was seen as the devil, mentioning the 2 things labels hated the most ‘free music’ and ‘MP3 files!’" Sony signed a deal this time last year, with EMI, Warner and Universal following suit.

We7.com launched on November 11, 2008.

Gabriel’s Music Sites Share Technology

By Patrick Smith, PaidContent, Fri 30 Jan 2009

Gabriel’s Music Sites Share Technology; Are They Just Digging In The Dirt?

Two music ventures backed by Peter Gabriel have done the sensible thing in an ever-crowded online music space and teamed up to share technology and make the most of the Gabriel association: ad-funded music player We7 is supplying tracks to music recommendation site The Filter for a online radio player on thefilter.com.

There are no plans for the radio service to be hosted on We7 at the moment. Both firms are venture backed by Gabriel’s Real World company and this latest deal is an extension of an existing relationship that gives We7 use of The Filter’s recommendation technology. So We7 has the tracks, The Filter has the tech and the sharing is now mutual.

Recommendation music sites aren’t anything new—Las.tfm has a large and growing UK audience and such sites have to contend with iTune’s Genius—but We7 says its stats have demonstrably gone up since it started using The Filter’s technology, which was developed by British tech firm Exabre. So with all this cooperation between We7 and The Filter, and their shared benefactors in the shape of Gabriel’s Real World Group, might one could gently suggest that a more formal merger would be the natural next step…

TheFilter.com teams up with We7 to bring personalised radio stations to the web

Monument PR Worldwid, Thursday, 29 January 2009

Peter-Gabriel backed website launches unique new personalised radio player

January 29, 2009 - In challenging economic times, it is always the businesses that work smarter that prosper and Bath-based entertainment recommendation and discovery service, TheFilter.com, is leading the way in innovative commercial thinking. The Peter Gabriel-backed website, which launched last year, has partnered up with ad-funded music service, We7, to provide free, personalized online radio stations to its growing user base.

Last year, The Filter provided We7 with its market-leading recommendation technology; this partnership has been expanded to cover radio fulfillment from We7. We7 already has agreements with the music labels in the UK, as well as a strong ad-supported infrastructure to cover streaming costs. The Filter has used this opportunity to develop a fantastically high value feature which fills a current void in the UK market.

“By partnering with We7 we have created a radio player based on our unique recommendation technology. This is another new feature which will help our users with their entertainment discovery journey. As a result we have already seen dwell time and page views on the website increase substantially, and we will build on this during the rest of the year with a number of new features and further changes to TheFilter.com” said CEO, David Maher Roberts.

The new radio stations on The Filter are powered by advanced recommendations technology, meaning that UK users will get a personalised radio station based on their individual music tastes. The stations are set up so that each user will hear songs they are familiar with as well as specially selected songs that are outside of their current taste-circle, so that they can discover new artists. The users can also choose to listen to their friends’ stations, or play from over thirteen genre stations.

About The Filter

The Filter is a personalised content filtering system that aggregates entertainment and information and connects users to content that reflects their tastes and moods. The developers behind The Filter are world leading British software company Exabre. They are backed by high profile investors, including Peter Gabriel's Real World Group and Eden Ventures.

The Filter has been downloaded in 164 countries. Its database currently includes over 5m songs, 330k movies and more than 50m individual purchases and playlists. The Filter works by using Bayesian mathematics. It was developed by Martin Hopkins, a physicist who was struggling to manage his growing digital music collection. The Filter currently has partnerships with Nokia Music Store (beta), Ministry of Sound and MSN Music

Contact:
Marc Ambasna-Jones

Monument PR Worldwide
t: +44 (0)1225 747214
m: +44 (0)7966 510702
e: marc@monumentpr.com
w: www.monumentpr.com

Allie Fisher
THE FILTER
T: +44(0)1225 788000
F: +44(0)1225 481824
e: allie.fisher@thefilter.com
w: www.thefilter.com

Five prizes for £100 of music to give away with We7

Tell us your top ten Manchester tracks for £100 worth of sounds – and what do you think of our top 25 tunes?

Confidential loves something that is innovative but also has real substance.

We7 is like this.

Led by Steve Purdham, a Cheshire internet entrepreneur, and Peter Gabriel, famed music man, this is a gift that keeps on giving.

The idea is simple. People who log on to www.we7.com get free music consisting of full songs and albums (not snippets) - three million of the buggers. And it gets better, because every time you play a song or album you’re sharing the love as the artist gets paid too.

In other words, instead of stealing tracks from the artists, by being crafty with where you source your music, you’re making sure they get paid too.

This bit of magic is achieved courtesy of We7 placing an ad a couple of seconds long at the beginning of each track. Give it a go, it doesn’t get in the way of your enjoyment at all. If you like the song you can then download it for free onto iTunes or whatever you use.

There is no log on needed either.

But if you do choose to log on, then there’s the whole range of features you’d expect on a tuned in website. You can create profiles, playlists, browse music, read the online magazine, review the charts and unsigned artists and, of course, blog merrily away.

Steve Purdham said, “We launched three weeks ago. This was after building up the music licences over the last 15 months, making sure we can offer enough variety. With three million tunes, we’re ready to go. And we’re proud of what we’ve got. This is the digital equivalent of a good old fashioned record store: it’s all here - indie, drum’n’bass, world music, you name it. And whenever you listen, it’s all legal with the benefits spreading from you to the artists.”

Steve’s right. We love We7 already and will be using it to provide a musical accompaniment to our stories and the extra video content we’re planning from 2009.

We7 loves our independent mindset too: a site for Mancunians owned by Mancunians. To that end they created a Manchester playlist for Confidential. This is the office choice of 25 Manc songs covering four decades to give choice and variety. Click here to play the list.

Tell us what you think. At the same time, we’d like you to create a top ten playlist of Manchester songs and post it in the rant box below. An informal judging panel sitting in a pub on 23 December will choose five winners for £100 of music from We7. Then we'll give someone a nice Christmas present.

The Confidential playlist - click here to play

I’m Into Something Good - Herman’s Hermits
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother - The Hollies
Sad Sweet Dreamer - Sweet Sensation
Saturday Night Fever - Bee Gees
Pearl’s a Singer - Elkie Brooks
Medicine Man - Barclay James Harvest
Ever Fallen in Love - Buzzcocks
Songs from Under the Floorboards - Magazine
Atmosphere - Joy Division
Nowhere Fast- The Smiths
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Kinky Afro - Happy Mondays
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses
British People in Hot Weather - The Fall
Some Day - M-People
She’s Gotten Over You - Puressence
Last Broadcast - Doves
Sexiest Man in Jamaica - Mint Royale
Gorecki- Lamb
Never Forget - Take That
Hey Boy, Hey Girl - The Chemical Brothers
She’s Electric - Oasis
One Day Like This - Elbow
That’s Not My Name - The Tings Tings
What Took You So Long? - The Courteeners

Peter Gabriel on download project We7: "Throw it at the wall and see what sticks"

Photograph: Felix Clay

John Plunket, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 25 2008

Peter Gabriel: 'Twenty years ago, the thought of encouraging advertising with music would be like offering your daughter to the devil.'

It is emblematic of the challenges facing the music industry today that Peter Gabriel earned more money from a compilation CD given away free with the Mail on Sunday than he did from the sales of his last record, the million-selling Up.

"It was given away to charity," said Gabriel of the proceeds from last year's Mail on Sunday giveaway. His pained expression suggests he is not a regular reader of Peter Wright's paper. "No, I won't make a comment about the newspaper involved."

It was also the Mail on Sunday that infuriated the beleaguered record industry - but wowed marketers - by giving away nearly 3m copies of the latest Prince album, Planet Earth. Did it worry Gabriel? "No, I think everyone should try all sorts of stuff. Throw it against the wall and see what sticks."

The former Genesis singer has thrown a portion of his own fortune into a new online venture that will also give content away for free.

We7, which launched earlier this month, positions itself as an "easier and better alternative to piracy", is an advertising-funded service that allows users to download songs for free. The catch is that each song has an advert tagged to the front of it.

Ads are both the bane of commercial radio and its lifeline, with listeners preferring the clutter free BBC. So how will users cope with the prospect of ads interrupting their iPod?

"It's a big hurdle," admitted Gabriel. "Twenty years ago, the thought of encouraging advertising with music would be like offering your daughter to the devil, but I think the reality is that people have got used to free music, and this is one of the few ways that musicians can still earn in a free music environment."

Technology has moved on in the 22 years since novelty "cyberpunk" band Sigue Sigue Sputnik put ads for L'Oreal and i-D magazine in the gaps between tracks on their album, Flaunt It!.

We7 will offer targeted ads based on information volunteered by its users, with an average of two minutes of ads per hour of music.

Around half of We7's 2 million songs are available for free download. The other half - the ones licensed by the four major record labels - have to be paid for. But users can stream all the songs for free - again, with ads attached. "People hate ads but they love free better," said the We7 chief executive, Steve Purdham.

Gabriel has long pioneered new digital music technology, from the Eve and Xplora interactive CD-roms in the 1990s - hilariously clunky-looking today but ground-breaking at the time - to OD2, one of the first online music download services which he co-founded with Charles Grimsdale, who is also a backer of We7.

However, his enthusiasm for all things digital - not to mention the Womad music festival, his Real World studio and record label and the Elders, the group of 12 statesmen and women that Gabriel convened to help deal with global problems - means there is little time left for his own recording career.

Gabriel's next record has been funded by Patrick McKenna, the chairman of the Ingenious Media Group and Gabriel's former financial adviser. But he may have to wait a while to see a return. Next year, perhaps? "Hopefully there's something," smiles Gabriel. "But who knows?"

He is an investor, not an inventor, he pointed out, unlike his father. "My dad was an inventor, an electrical engineer, so I'm attracted to it and I am fortunate enough to work with some very smart people," said Gabriel.
"I watched my dad trying to sell something called dial-a-programme for about 10 years, a cable-based, entertainment on-demand electronic democracy home shopping [service]. But it was 1971 and he got nowhere. He was stuck with one English company who didn't think people would ever pay for television." How times change.

Peter Gabriel et We7

Alain Brunet, Chroniqueur à La Presse, Le Mercredi 26 Novembre 2008

Selon The Guardian, Peter Gabriel a investi une grosse somme sur le site de téléchargement légal We7. Mis en ligne récemment, cette plate-forme se veut «une alternative au piratage».

On peut y télécharger gratuitement des chansons… auxquelles on a collé une pub. Cela compte pour la moitié du répertoire de We7, on doit quand même payer pour les chansons sans pub.

Pour plusieurs observateurs, la voie des revenus publicitaires serait le dernier retranchement de la vente directe de musique en ligne. Rien, jusqu’à maintenant, n’a démontré aux créateurs la viabilité du modèle fondé sur des revenus publicitaires. Si ça ne fonctionne pas à moyen terme (ce que je crois personnellement), on devra se tourner vers d’autres solutions pour rétribuer équitablement ceux qui composent, écrivent et chantent - et je ne parle surtout pas des plus gros, une infime minorité au sein de la communauté artistique.

« C’est un véritable obstacle», a concédé Gabriel au journaliste du Guardian qui s’interrogeait sur l’accueil des fans de chansons gratuites téléchargées avec de la pub imposée - comme à la FM commerciale.

«Il y a 20 ans, l’idée de soutenir la publicité avec de la musique originale revenait à offrir sa fille au diable », ajoute le fameux chanteur britannique.

Nous sommes en 2008, 20 ans plus tard… Et l’on n’arrive toujours pas à rétribuer la création musicale avec la vente en ligne. Ce modèle fondé sur la pub a-t-il un avenir ?

Essayez We7 et livrez vos commentaires.

Peter Gabriel 'free' music service launches today (Nov 11)

NME, Nov 11, 2008

A new music service that allows fans to listen to songs and albums in their entirety for free has been launched today. Peter Gabriel co-founded the venture called We7 - a free advertising-funded music streaming service which will have music from four major labels and hundreds of indies available to listen to.

While fans get to listen to tracks in full for free before they buy, rights owners and artists will get paid by We7 from audio and digital advertising revenue. Website goers can create their own playlists, share favourites with friends and also buy music at the download store. There are millions of tracks available now from acts including Kings Of Leon, Pink, Nickelback and Estelle. For more information go to We7.com.

We7 Challenges Piracy With Biggest Ever Free Music Giveaway

LONDON, November 11 /PRNewswire/

Listen Free and Buy What You Love at We7's Big Listen

Today is great news for music fans and bad news for piracy, as millions of tracks from artists including Kings of Leon, Pink, Nickelback, and Estelle will be legally and instantly accessible on http://www.we7.com/, as We7 launches its full music service.

We7's 'Big Listen' Launch Campaign delivers:- - On-demand, unlimited and Instant access to full tracks and Albums - FREE - "Search, Click & Play"- an easier and better alternative to piracy - A 'Celestial Jukebox' of millions of great tracks - 'Play Anywhere' - new link and play system empowering blogs and websites - Rights Owners and Artists get PAID

As an easier and better alternative to piracy, We7 gives music fans unlimited access to millions of great tracks from major record labels and Independents across all genres, to listen to for FREE and on-demand. The We7 difference is that while fans get free music , rights owners and artists get paid by We7 utilising both audio and digital advertising, so it's a win-win situation for all.

Whatever their music taste, all music lovers have to do at We7.com is 'Search, Click and Play' and they can listen to full tracks and albums of their favourites artists instantly, We7 also delivers the choice music fans have come to expect, by adding up to 30,000 tracks a day to its outstanding 'celestial jukebox' of over 3 million licensed tracks, including many new releases as they become available.

Music fans can create personal playlists, share their favourites with their friends and buy the music they love at We7's download store, where they can download high quality mp3 downloads which are compatible with iPods and most other digital players.

We7 introduces its 'Play Anywhere' dream, where any web reference to music, tracks, albums or artists in any article, blog or website can be played instantly, wherever you are online. This will allow music fans, websites and bloggers to share and play music anywhere on the web via We7 widgets and links.

We7 CEO, Steve Purdham, said: "It was just 18 months ago that we had the dream of delivering great music that's free and legal for consumers and where artists and rights owners get paid. Today that dream's a reality. We7 has great music and that builds great audiences which will be highly valuable to brands and advertisers. We're hugely proud of our great service and very excited to be delivering it to the benefit of music fans, artists and brands alike".

Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive at the BPI commented: "Record labels are licensing a wide variety of new business models so music fans can access the music they want, when, how and where they want it, while respecting the rights of artists. We7 is a very good example of how the music business is leading the digital content revolution. But for digital entrepreneurs like We7 to continue innovating and investing in new services for consumers, we must tackle illegal downloading, which undermines the business case for all legal services. The BPI's new partnerships with Government and internet providers aim to ensure that digital Britain can realise the enormous value that music and other creative works offer, if their value is respected."

We7 Signs The Orchard

September 30, 2008 by Paul Glazowski

Ad-Supported Music Service We7 Signs The Orchard

Peter Gabriel and other backers of the free-streaming, ad-supported, as well as paid-for download service We7 already convinced Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI to provide some of their respective catalogues to the effort. Now the service has signed The Orchard, an international distributor with connections to more than 14,000 artists and over 1.3 million tracks.

The way in which tracks are being issued through We7 is not certain. Immediate availability of content is definitely not proving to be the case at present, as a quick search for material listed among The Orchard’s repertoire of artists shows a great number of absences. The same goes for the major companies noted earlier.

But if We7 co-founder and CEO Steve Purdham’s assessment of additions soon to be made is any indication, the service’s full launch is expected occur “in the coming months,” ensuring that the future will look richer than today. Probably, anyway. The wait will either be treacherous or easygoing, depending on one’s current assessment of the We7 business model.

Seeing as how We7 offers music rights holders the ability to offer streaming music as well as free (ad-supported) and paid-for downloads, one might think it to be striving to be a come-one-come-all type venue. Whatever fashion the consumer wants their music, in other words. But the availability of content is far from thorough, and the somewhat strange juxtaposition of paid and ad-supported downloads might make for an uneven experience.

Then again, if it is payment for songs that you wish to avoid, We7 can provide for such demand. Granted, the amount of popular content needs to be dramatically increased if We7 is to have any chance at amassing a substantial audience, but if one is to take the company’s abovementioned statement into account, that objective will eventually be realized.

When all is said and done, if we’re to draw any comparisons with the most recent free music newsmaker (MySpace), We7 will be something that resembles the social network’s opposite. Meaning music will be the primary attention getter, with friendly features tagging alongside.

TheFilter.com to play key part in We7 future

Monument PR Worldwide, Tuesday, 30 September 2008

Peter Gabriel ventures sign major deal to improve and heighten user experience

Tuesday 30th September - Entertainment recommendation service TheFilter.com is announcing a major new deal with download music site We7. The partnership will enable We7 users to get filtered recommendations based on their listening habits.

We7, which recently signed EMI for its ad-supported streaming music service, now has a catalogue of over three million tracks. But the site claims that it is now a challenge for its users to discover new music based on tastes due to the huge choice available.

TheFilter.com's integration into the We7 service will combat this problem by giving users access to its smart filtering tools. The tools use an advanced mathematical algorithm to filter out music that a user will not like and filter in content that reflects their taste.

The powerful Filter engine will be used to recommend artists, albums and songs – first within a specific genre and then across more genres as it gathers more consumption and usage data related directly to the We7 catalogue.

"At We7 we really believe it is critical that music fans can listen to the music they want, when they want with a simple 'click'," said Stephen Purdham, CEO at We7, "but with a catalogue at 3m tracks and growing, sometimes that choice becomes difficult. That is where the great recommendation technologies of TheFilter.com come into its own, providing easy suggestions to guide fans to music they will love, increasing their enjoyment of the We7 service."

David Maher Roberts, CEO TheFilter.com says: "I am delighted to be able to add We7 to our growing list of partners. The Filter's smart recommendation engine is the perfect solution to help content owners and distributors connect more users to more of their content - and I am convinced that We7 will see an immediate effect."

Maher Roberts added that one of the major benefits of partnering with TheFilter.com is that "we share the aggregated usage data with all of our partners - this means that the more partners we have using our service, the greater the depth of the consumption data and the better the recommendations for all involved. We hope to be signing up a number of new partners in Europe and the US over the coming months."

TheFilter.com tools on We7 are expected to be live shortly after their major launch later in the year.

About TheFilter.com

The Filter is a personalised content filtering system that aggregates entertainment and information and connects users to content that reflects their tastes and moods. The developers behind The Filter are world leading British software company Exabre. They are backed by high profile investors, including Peter Gabriel's Real World Group and Eden Ventures.

The Filter has been downloaded in 164 countries. Its database currently includes over 5m songs, 330k movies and more than 50m individual purchases and playlists.

The Filter works by using Bayesian mathematics. It was developed by Martin Hopkins, a physicist who was struggling to manage his growing digital music collection. www.thefilter.com

About We7

We7 is the first free and legal service of its kind in Europe delivering music in the way consumers want it. We7 users can listen to music for free whenever they want, and buy whatever they love. The service works by 'grafting' short, relevant ads which precede the free music tracks based upon information known about the user, such as location, age and gender. This advertising ensures that artists and labels receive royalties for making their songs available, whilst consumers receive streamed legal music free of charge. We7 showcases exciting music of all genres from labels big and small (including three majors) as well as directly from unsigned artists. Co-founded by Peter Gabriel, We7 is expanding the digital download market and pioneering incremental music revenues from advertising - www.we7.com

Ad-funded music downloads site We7 has signed up EMI music.

Around 400,000 tracks from EMI Music's repertoire of artists, including We7 founder investor Peter Gabriel, will be available on We7.com through both on-demand, ad-funded audio streaming and paid-for MP3 downloads.

The partnership means We7 users will be able to listen to full tracks and albums on an unlimited basis at no cost, create personal playlists, and share their favourites with their friends.

We7's advertising technology plays short, targeted audio adverts before each streamed track and ensures that music offered through the site is legal but rights owners get paid and valued.

We7 plans to start delivering EMI Music's content later this year, and is delighted to welcome We7 founder investor Peter Gabriel to its growing roster of available artists. Peter Gabriel, commented: "I am very happy my catalogue is finally available on We7".

Douglas Merrill, President, Digital Business, EMI Music, said: "We7 represents the new and innovative digital experiments underway in the market today, giving fans another way to experience their favourite music and providing artists with an avenue to reach new audiences. We are pleased to be a part of emerging digital initiatives, including We7."

Steve Purdham, Founder Investor and CEO, We7, said: "We7 is making phenomenal progress ahead of our full launch later in the year, there's real momentum in the industry right now and ad-funded streaming is becoming more widely accepted as a legal alternative to piracy. We're really excited to be offering great music from EMI Music's world-class repertoire of artists on We7.com, enabling fans to listen to tracks for free when they want and then buy the music they love."

EMI signs up to We7

By Ben Cardew, musicweek, Tuesday September 2, 2008

EMI has become the third major to sign with ad-supported music service We7, in a deal that means material from the company’s founder Peter Gabriel will be available from the site.

The partnership, which follows similar deals with Sony BMG and Warner, means We7 users will be able to listen to full tracks and albums on an unlimited basis at no cost, as well as buy MP3 downloads.

We7’s advertising technology plays short, targeted audio adverts before each streamed track and ensures rights owners get paid.

EMI Music president of digital business Douglas Merrill says, “We7 represents the new and innovative digital experiments underway in the market today, giving fans another way to experience their favourite music and providing artists with an avenue to reach new audiences. We are pleased to be a part of emerging digital initiatives, including We7.”

We7 boss talks Apple, choice and future music

Posted by Jonny on August 18th, 2008 under Apple, Interviews, News

Steve Purdham is the CEO and founder investor in ads-supported free music play, We7.

We7 is an innovative music service, offering music for free on an ad-supported model. The service gives users lots of control - they can choose specific tracks, stream them, share them with others, and can buy them if they wish.

The service offers free music by dynamically grafting short audios ads. “This way, you can enjoy downloading and streaming music for free, safe in the knowledge that the artists, composers and rights owners will still get paid for their creative work,” the company website says. And if you don’t want the ads, you can buy the track to get rid of them.

The former DJ turned technology entrepreneur is still passionate about music - he’s always happy to talk about how he thinks it’s going to evolve. We caught up with him for a reality check on what’s happening to the future of music.

Q: Who are you, how did you get here

Purdham: Basically I build companies from scratch to hopefully something meaningful, primarily technology based companies, the last couple were Internet Security. I initially invested in the We7 idea along with Peter Gabriel but the idea is so irrationally seductive I also opted to run the business and became CEO.

Q: What is We7 - what is it doing now, what does it aim to do?

Purdham: We7 is a bridge between the paid-for music world and the world of music piracy, by providing a legal alternative to stealing. The idea is to use ads to pay for the fact that music is being consumed, discovered and shared so that fans get free music, advertisers gets audiences and the best thing - rights owners get paid.

We go a little further by giving the fans the choice: they can discover listen and share music for free with ads and then buy the music they love for download

Q: Is file-sharing the music industry demon, or a change agent to shake up a business in stasis?

Purdham: File-sharing is just technology, like electric light. It cannot be a demon, it has become a change agent because of the industries reluctance to change in the face of consumer’s demanding access to more music that they could discover, share and consume. The problem is that with no formal economic infrastructure in place [Editor Note: I think Steve means this was becausethe labels didn't respond to demand fast enough] ‘free’ became the default.

Q: What’s your vision for music industry change?

Purdham: The top line is that music is valuable for many reasons - not least for just getting the hairs to stand up on your neck. That value has to be recognized, but what is that value?

- To a extreme fan music is priceless; to an interested but not fussed individual it may be worth a listen if there is no cost (at least to them). In that context the Internet is just a delivery van which can get music to the ears of an audience as big or small, as generic or niche as required. There’s no longer one economic model where one size fits all but we have to allow a wide spectrum of different models…premium products, a la carte downloads, subscription based services, ads-funded services - whatever can be imagined.

Consumers will decide what works for them, we just have to give them the choices.

Q: Apple, iTunes, iPod - friend of foe..

Purdham: Friend, they made it happen without them the 4 billion tracks that have been bought would have still been downloaded in some matter, so they show what can be done.

Q: Should all music have the same price?

Purdham: No - infinite pricing rules , we are surrounded by examples of different pricing.

Think about a can of Coke: Free at a promotion based gig, 30-p from Macro, £1 at the supermarket; £1.50 in the pub; £2 at a nightclub; £5 in a posh hotel mini-bar and priceless to a man dying of thirst

Music is the same – that is why the more digital models that come life the more we can ‘mine’ the value.

Q: Should we put everything online, a cultural melting pot, and see what happens?

Purdham: You ask this as if it is a choice, everything is or will be online - that is why we have to find the way to track (not block) and monetize and be part of making it happen rather than watch (and moan) about it happening.

This is why as a technologist I keep putting up the warning that the difference between streaming and downloading will be undetectable within the next iteration of technological change, yet the music industry is hell bent on producing models based on these fading technological differences. That will cause another crisis.

The celestial jukebox is very practical, we are closer to the point where any track can be played at anytime from anywhere.

At the moment it’s messy and you need to know what you are doing but that is becoming easier almost every day, so the future is simple you want music, you select the song and it plays. The hard bit is deciding whether you are going to pay for that or if somebody else - an advertiser perhaps - pays on your behalf.

We7 boss praises Apple for iTunes

Jonny Evans, MacWorld, Friday, 22 August 2008

Apple's success with iTunes showed the labels what could be done

The music industry has a huge debt to Apple and the company's efforts have shown labels that online services can be succesful, We7 boss, Steve Purdham, said this week.

We7 is a service which offers users free access to music so long as they are prepared to be exposed to advertising. Users can choose the music they want to play, stream or download tracks, share them with others through their sites and so on, and can also buy the music, if they like.

"We7 is a bridge between the paid-for music world and the world of music piracy, by providing a legal alternative to stealing," Purdham told Distorted Loop. Purdham was a founder investor in the service with Apple Master, Peter Gabriel.

He slams music labels for demonising file-sharing "it's just a technology, like electric light," he said. File-sharing became a major industry problem because the industry itself failed to quickly embrace digital processes in order to provide an alternative.

Apple came up with a strong alternative, he opines. Calling the company a "friend" of the industry, he says, "they made it happen without them the 4 billion tracks that have been bought would have still been downloaded in some matter, so they showed what could be done."

The We7 boss - also an award-winning technology entrepreneur, has a stark warning for label bosses now: "As a technologist I keep putting up the warning that the difference between streaming and downloading will be undetectable within the next iteration of technological change, yet the music industry is hell bent on producing models based on these fading technological differences. That will cause another crisis," he said.

Unlimited Free Music

by Simon Power, sonicstate.com, 14-Aug-08

Warners Strike A Deal With We7

Warner Music has made a deal with We7, the download site co-founded by Peter Gabriel, to offer paid-for mp3 downloads and ad-funded on-demand audio streaming via its online portal.
This means that We7 members will have access to unlimited tracks and albums in their entirety at no cost.They will also be able to create playlists, share music and embed tracks into their personal websites.

We7’s on-demand music player will play ads before each streamed track to fund the service which is intended to be up and running by late October 2008.

Steve Purdham, Founder Investor and CEO of We7, said: "Recently there has been a lot of focus on piracy, but this deal is reflective of the radically changing digital landscape where music fans can access high quality, safe and legal alternatives.”

Links : We7

We7 Anticipates Trouble As It Releases 200,000 Tracks

Story from REDORBIT NEWS, Published: 2008/08/05

We7 (www.we7.com) is an ad-funded music download site, that lets music fans stream or download music for free in return for receiving targeted advertising. The site was co-founded by Peter Gabriel and launched in May 200 7 with a mere 30 tracks; there are now 750,000 tracks available for streaming on the site.

The hosting challenge for We7 is that apart from the paid-for music downloads it offers, the content on its site is dynamic by nature, since each free track that is streamed or downloaded is served with ads targeted at that subscriber. We7 works with a web hosting company called Mythic Beasts, which co-locates at one of the big London Docklands data centres, to ensure it has enough bandwidth available for users accessing its site.

But, more importantly, says Steve Purdham, chief executive of We7, the site was built with performance in mind. "The infrastructure and design of the site has been built to be scalable; the ability to load balance between one set of servers and another had already been put in," he explains.

Even so, when We7 announced a partnership with Sony BMG and the release of an additional 200,000 tracks on its site free to subscribers from 28 April this year, it began testing four weeks ahead of the launch. "The first thing we tried to anticipate was all the different bottlenecks," he recalls.

We7's preparations turned out to be worthwhile. "Our peaks on the launch day were around 40,000 streams, 16,000 previews and 12,500 downloads," he reveals. Despite the testing, We7 did hit a glitch. It turned out to be something very simple to fix. One of the server's operating systems had an embedded file limit that restricted it from opening more than 10.000 files at any one time, and the server went down. But in 15 to 20 seconds, Purdham says it was back up again and only 130 people experienced poor-quality streaming as a result.

His response is pragmatic: "These things are going to happen; what you have to do is anticipate them and have processes in place that capture them."