Ad supported music service SpiralFrog went dark yesterday. The company's limited assets have been surrendered to creditors.
SpiralFrog, like other ad supported music services, began life stunted by major label liscening demands. Then once finally birthed it failed to gain traction with consumers
bothered by a combination of ads and restrictive DRM required by the labels.
Upheavel in a contentious executive suite hurt Spiral Frog. But bad timing and the economy did the most to quicken its demise before experimentation with the business model could ever occur. SpiralFrog was also hit by a "a macro-economic perfect storm" a source close to the company told CNet. A devesated global economy along with "the collapse of the capital markets" and "rapid compression of the ad markets" were too much to overcome, said the source.
Ad supported music may be down, but is far from out. Some like the scrappy WE7 are always experimenting and streaming sites like imeem and Spotify are gaining real favor with both fans and the labels.
