I love it when a company tracks inward url’s as I believe that’s how Gareth from We7 from came across my blog post and left me a comment. It’s great. Every company should do it. Despite the title, the blog post isn’t going to be an A-B comparison of We7 to Spotify. Neither will I end the post with a definitive answer of which one you should use, you should try them both. You can instantly sign up to We7 here but for Spotify, you’ll need an invite, they gave me about 20 of these a day so drop me a comment if you want one [I am no longer sending out invites, sorry folks, I hear the folks over at http://www.helpforbands.co.uk have some] .
I’ll be honest here, when We7 1st came out, I hated the idea. It was perhaps 18 months ago. I remember being in an indie comm meeting at the BPI and it was around that time people were worried that with the introduction of ad supported models and increases in newspaper cover mounts, everyone was worried about the devaluation of music. Basically, if people were used to getting their music for free, why would they ever buy a cd/vinyl/download ever again? But I’m very much into new technology and it didn’t take long for me to understand the model properly, then love it. In fact ad supported models have the potential to change consumer behaviour and increase premium subscription numbers. So here’s Gareth’s comment:
“Hi Anthony,
Both We7 and Spotify are trying to make the ad funded streaming model work. Undoubtedly we will both tune our models over the months to come. While we do put an advert before every track at the moment they are only a couple of seconds long and are combined with the visual advertising. We think that users prefer frequent but short advertising to less frequent but long. If you want to listen to a track then a 2 or 3 second wait is OK, but a 25 might not be. I would be interested to here your views on this.”
I really like the guys from We7. Recently I was at Gigbeth and Clive Gardiner demonstrated the We7 system to us all. He was very honest and candid about it all which was refreshing and went down well with those in attendance. I had previously tested We7, but it’s changed a lot since, so I registered again to see whats new. Easy to set the account up and within a minute, I was listening to Jack White & Alicia Keys’ bond track. As soon as I clicked, there it was, an audio advert from Littlewoods. Quite painless I guess. In comparison I prefer Spotify’s program than on the web as the controls on my mac keyboard can control the playing etc. That said, I do like on We7 how you can change web page and it doesn’t interrupt the audio playing, nice feature (although if you go onto a secure page such as updating your profile, the music does stop, so bear that in mind).
It’s interface is like any music store; playlists, suggestions, charts etc. It has a nice search bar with pictures of artists and name suggestions. It even has payment options to purchase the track ad free from either We7 with a price point of 48p [cheapest I found] upwards or alternatively, a download button that opens up iTunes and finds it in the music store (although when I clicked on a Radiohead track, iTunes said it cannot be found). They even enable you to download some tracks (with advert attached) and let you put it on your portable mp3 device, but the majors haven’t played ball, and I’m struggling to find a track I can download.
One thing I prefer about Spotify is the continuous playing, in We7 you have to create a playlist in order for it to play track after track. But there’s more editorial in We7 compared to Spotify, not something too important to me, but others would like it. Also We7 have an unsigned element going where people can become “tastemakers”.
But despite what either model has added it’s all about the user experience and I think how the ad’s are played is key. So is it better to have a short ad before each track? Or perhaps a longer ad in the middle of an album? Artists wouldn’t want any ad’s in there at all, as it would interrupt the finished product they have produced. Think of Pink Floyd’s the dark side of the moon? Just wouldn’t work with advertisements in the middle. I would be interested in hearing your views on this one guys as I think my preference is the longer ad in the middle, but we are all different and I’m sure We7 would also be interested in hearing what you guys have to say. In the meantime, If We7 are kind enough and you want to try We7 out, I’ll see if they will give me some promo codes for your feedback. What are you waiting for… Sign up
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Interesting post here Anthony. I can see why you have a preference to Spotify as I’m the same. I wonder how long it will be before We7 are able to encourage more labels to give the rights away enabling users to download the track with adverts attached?
Thanks for your comment Mike, a point I forgot to make was that on Spotify, you can’t download any tracks whatsoever, something to keep in mind if you are comparing We7 to Spotify.
Well, the majors are being cautious here, there are quite a few ad supported/subscription/pay up front models around, they are testing to the waters to see which models are most successful. Indies of course are more open to experimentation, not only that, but they are pretty much forced (not by We7) but by the industry to be the guinea pigs of new music models. I’m talking about a few things here such as the way an indie can hardly get a single into the HMV’s & even harder, Zavvi as they concentrate on Major record label releases, so indies are forced to monetize in other ways. But there is of course an upside, it encourages people to experiment more in their music taste and giving music away for free can have great benefits to an artist.
Will We7 be developing a program soon or will it always be on the web? How about Mobile applications?
Thx KT x
Thanks for the great posts Anthony. There’s definitely a lot of great developments happening right now in music and we’re excited to be a part of it.
I’ve also taken the liberty to add a few extra invites to your account if you want to hand them out.
regards,
Andres
Spotify
Hey Anthony,
I would be happy to give you some promo codes to hand out. To be clear to your readers though, you don’t need an account or invite to use our site. Just come and click play on any track or album that you like! Promo codes are for cash amounts you can use to buy music.
Regarding a program instead of a web site there are no current plans for this. A lot of our web site usage comes from people looking for free music on the Internet. Once they find us we want to make it as easy as possible to listen to the music. If you have to download an application then a fair few people would give up. Thats not to say that Spotify wont do very well, its just different to we7.
We are certainly thinking about mobile apps.
Could you please send me one? Thanks!!!
A iPhone App with We7 would be so cool; no need to ever buy music again
I VERY much prefer the ad system on Spotify. Having short ads at the start of EVERY song, as we7 does, is much more disuptive and intrusive than the very infrequent, longer ads on Spotify. I also find that the cheesily voiced, overproduced ads on we7 are much more annoying. I started using we7 before Spotify but now that I have Spotify I barely go back to we7 for the sole reason of the annoying ads on we7. Perhaps we7 should investigate further into user preferences as I find it har to believe that “users prefer frequent but short advertising to less frequent but long.”
I agree with Dave. I used to use We7 on the basis that I could just about put up with the irritating few second ads at the start of each song, but when Spotify came along, the longer ads are LESS intrusive. Time to put on the kettle. In fact, its a great reminder that I’m spending too much time at the computer!!!
I personally find that we7 is more up-to-date with the newest albums than Spotify.
I have personally used both services. I believe, as We7 themselves say, that many people are put off by the need to download software to run Spotify. This will probably increasingly be the case, as at present many of the people who use such services are those who use the internet most often, and so are more likely to be comfortable with downloading software. However, as such services become more and more mainstream, We7 may get more users as it is browser based.
There are some disadvantages to We7 though. The lack of the option to pay to remove adverts may put many people off, including those who will use it for parties etc.
Another disadvantage is those adverts which just say stuff such as ‘Check out We7 on Twitter’ or ‘Share this with a friend’ although I must admit that they become so repetitive I personally often don’t even notice them! I like the option that We7 gives an ad free day every 10, but I would also like them to look at reducing the amount of adverts which say something like ‘Check out We7 on Facebook’. Presumably the company doesn’t earn anything from these and for people who use the service regularly the message will become rather repetitive, and so maybe there could be an option of reducing the frequency of such adverts, even if this means that some songs don’t have an avert in front of them? This may also have the added bonus of attracting extra people to We7 at a time when Spotify is attracting far more users.
Overall though I find We7 to be affect my system performance less especially when used in an Opera tab and so I prefer this to Spotify. However, everyone has their own opinion!
only recently found We7. really enjoy the service dont mind the ads but would like to try spotify to compare if you could give me a invite code i would be very greatful. cheers
Good posy anthony. I have been using we7 for a while, the ads are annoying but short enough, its a great way of trying music out to buy rather than the 30sec bursts you get on amazon etc. I wouldn’t use it to listen to music generally as the sound quuality is no where near as good as my conventional hi-fi, and I’ve done comparisons, having the streamed music playing along with a cd, and switching.
Someone told me about stopify down the pub yeserday so I would Like to try it out, if you have an invote i would love one
cheers
Andrew
Hi Andrew;
Have sent an invitation through to you to your email, enjoy.
I only came across we7 about a month ago and instantly fell in love with it. I listen to music everyday and love listening to new artists but found it very expensive through itunes. So as you can imagine, when i found out i could listen to music for FREE i was quite excited
. To be honest i don’t really notice the ad’s at the start of each song. Although i can imagine if you were listening to an album (like dark side of the moon as you said) in which the songs flow into one another, an advert for littlewoods might ruin the effect. Although i would agree that a long advert in between an entire album would be a better for listeners, i could see people listening to only half an album and then skipping the ad.
I would love a chance to test out spotify. I believe that they have started the invite only thing again earlier this month. I would love an invite if you have on spare.
Thanks for the great blog.
Tony
One is on it’s way to you Tony, come back and let us know what you think.
Hi Anthony:
I have been a hifi maniac since vinyl times; and I have been enjoying its constant evolution through 8-track tape(!!), open reel, cassette, CD, mp3 and now online streaming. Premium or Advert-Funded are just two small variations of a newborn era of virtual media support; which one is best only time will tell. Reality is, people are more and more geared towards “consuming” music today than they were 10 years ago whis is telling something. It is, in principle, a win-win situation that no doubt will contribute and encourage new artists and producers with a huge benefit of the art of music.
Not sure if you are still granting invites, I would love to try Spotify if you send me one. Thanks.
Enrique
Spotify have stalled I think, the lack of new invites being released indicates to me that the model doesn’t work.
(That said, if you do have an invite, I’d love one).
we7 works well enough for now
Thanks.
It has taken me twenty minutes to discover that we7 has a much bigger catlogue than spotify
search under The Fall, or Penguin Cafe for examples
Interesting – I’m old school in that I like physical media – there’s something more involving about scanning a rack of CDs compared to browsing an online library. Anyway I digress. I’m late to we7 and am impressed apart from the clunky interface. Ok I’m not paying anything (yet) so I shouldn’t expect it to be THAT nice. Their 70s back catalogue is quite impressive and classical stuff is covered. An excellent try before you buy/dont buy site.
Guess I should have a loook at spotify. If you have any invites spare that would be very kind.
Cheers
–
Ian
A couple of notes. we7 premium is (normally) £5. £60 a year. This sounds very reasonable to me. Let’s take your average music junky; what % is this of their yearly mobile contract? Even if its as high as 50% it still sounds like good value.
Re. the short adverts versus long adverts argument – let the user decide – make it configurable!
Finally, we7 appear to have online try/buy and radio sorted. Why not go that extra step and provide a link to physical media. Ideally from a consumer point of view) this would be a price sorted list ala find-cd.co.uk. Could even list ebay items…I’m sure these are all in the pipeline…
I personally find that listening to 3 second adverts before every song can get annoying, but I’ve been using it so long that I’m so used to them that I forget they’re there :S.
Anyway I’m interested in trying out spotify, so I’d appreciate an invite if you wouldn’t mind
I found one of the pros to we7 is the Last.fm scrobble function. Last.fm helps me discover new artists according to my tastes. We7′s status update function helps cut down time spent adding the songs to my library.
As far as the adverts go, if We7 could readjust the volume level, it won’t be as annoying.
If you have any leftover Spotify invites, please send one my way. I would love to compare the two. Thanks.
To be honest, I use we7 but I wouldn’t classify myself as a major player. My average listen is an album or 2 a week with a few odd tracks in-between. And I’m not a big spender either.
Short track ads are less of a grind to me than long ads especially when they are repetitive.
Should stress more the link between ad-free days and having an account.
Web page is a bit clunky but preferred by me to a stand-alone app.
I just wanna say thanks for the invite =]
I’ve been using Spotify over the past couple of days and in comparison to we7, which I’ve used for over a year, I think the tracks flow together much better with just the occasional disruption of 30 second adverts. Plus Spotify has The Defiled’s EP and Avenged Sevenfold’s earlier albums on it, which We7 doesn’t…
But when it comes to bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Oasis and Metallica, I guess I’ll have to stick with making playlists on YouTube =P
I recently discovered we7 because Spotify doesn’t support proxy configuration scripts – i.e. it doesn’t work in the office!
I personally prefer we7, I feel it is more of an immersive experience.
Hey Anthony
can you send me a invite to Spotify
that would be great cheers
william
i am not learned in the ways of spotify, as i haven’t got an account, but i really love the way we7 allows you to experiment with your music taste at no cost whatsoever, and before long the adverts just dissapear, i also love the way that you can search for other music while still playing your playlist.
if you do have an invite… i would be grateful
thanks
oh, yeah. the iphone app is amazing. it stores your playlists offline, so you can listen to your music without internet connection. but you can’t change your playlists on your phone, you need your computer to do that. and if you’ve updated your playlists on your computer, you need to have a connection to the internet on your iphone to reccieve the updates and save them onto your phone. but from then on you can have tonnes of free music (and adverts)on your iphone. win!
cheers for the invite Anthony, Spotify is brill
x
I see Gareth (from WE7)’s point that they want users to be able to play tracks straight from a search engine, but what’s to stop you having an app as well for the longer term users? The website is fine, but is a bit sluggish compared to Spotify’s interface.
An issue with both is that they’re nowhere near as customisable as a proper media player (WMP or iTunes). The ideal would really be for them to allow interface with any media player. Spotify already has an API – would be great if MS, Apple et al made use of it…
Thinking that Apple’s upcoming ‘cloud-based’ iTunes (see: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/15/apple_cloud/)will finally push Spotify/WE7 to either encourage interfacing or to improve their own interfaces to match the present media players.
Whatever happens, will be interesting to watch!