Sonific: the future of music according to the futurist himself

Well the Sonific Beta is just out courtesy of the well known music specialist Gerd Leonhard.  Concept is that you go to Sonific and choose fully cleared (legally speaking) songs that you can then embed nicely into your blog or your photostream so you can sonify the web.  No more silent pages with amazon wish lists , you can express your musical personality and tastes with long song samples.

Today this is very much beta so there is still work to do on the player etc. but it gives a good indication of what this could achieve over time.  The promise is to add interesting music to the web experience with inherent social filtering at the source (Digg style) and call to action on the e-commerce front.  I find this a very interesting complementary twist on the Pandora / Last.fm debate.   Here is an example of a "songspot":

I loo forward to seeing how this develops and adds to the online music equation.  I like the fact that it should be music industry friendly and a great way for content owners to market their content virally with conversion at the end through the e-commerce partners.  Being a VC I also have to ask the question of how this makes money ?  Without revealing too much the FAQ says the following:

So how does Sonific make money?

Among other things, Sonific will make money by offering targeted andstrictly contextual advertising (i.e. by offering ads that are relatedto the music that is being presented), and by collecting commissionsfrom e-commerce transactions that happen after people click on theSongSpots™ and buy the song, CD, concert ticket, music player orsubscription service.

Comments

[Gerd Leonhard]

Fred, here is the latest from Sonific -- Cheers Gerd

Sonific launches Sonific Mail: free music greetings added to popular SongSpots Service

Sonific LLC today announced the launch of Sonific Mail, the first of several music syndication innovations that the company will offer in the next 6-9 months. The new feature is now available with any of the 65.000 songs offered via www.sonific.com, allowing a user to send musical greetings with personalized messages to anyone, for free, directly via the Sonific website. A Sonific Mail recipient simply clicks on the link to play the full-length track while reading the message, and can then also create their own Sonific Mails or SongSpots(TM) with the same or with any other track in Sonific's catalog. Sonific Mail is the latest addition to Sonific's SongSpots(TM) service, putting yet another viral, 'web2.0' marketing tool at the disposal of bands, musicians, record labels and music publishers, as well as enabling fans and supporters to spread the word along with music, using Sonific Mail for activities such as gig invitations, record release notices, band news and tour updates, and much more.....

http://www.gerdleonhard.net/2006/11/sonific_launche.html

[Gerd Leonhard]

Latest news: Sonific now supports full SongSpot integration into EBAY. Put music on your auction postings for free, in 30 seconds.

Be different, sell higher ;).

Check out http://www.gerdleonhard.net/2006/09/put_a_soundtrac.html and www.auctionmusic.net

Gerd Leonhard, www.Sonific.com CEO

[Gerd Leonhard]

Thanks for the great post Frederic. Sonific is building a network that can monetize in many different ways, in particular I think the 'advertising2.0' angles are going to be very interesting, and the effects of many many many promotional placements of 100s of 1000s of tracks is going to create some very powerful commission and pay-per-action opportunities. We already have users that have bought a band's music on emusic or itunes after hearing a songspot somewhere!! Cheers Gerd Leonhard, CEO www.sonific.com