From the "Where Are They Now?" file comes SpiralFrog. There were a couple posts about the ad-supported music site yesterday.

One was at Silicon Alley Insider, which mentioned the invite-only Beta. "We hear they might launch next month" wrote Peter Kafka. "SpiralFrog's site says it has 700,000 tracks available, or less than 20% of iTunes' 5 million," he wrote. Of course, that one major that has a deal with SpiralFrog is Universal Music Group, which has a 28% share on the digital album share and a 36% share of the digital track market. That's the one major any start-up should have.

News.com was also on SpiralFrog yesterday . Wrote Greg Sandoval, "(founder Joe) Mohen said SpiralFrog will offer 700,000 songs at launch and be the first ad-supported site to offer video for download. He estimated that SpiralFrog will be ready for a public launch sometime before the end of the year."

Yesterday paidContent linked to a report of the Canadian beta that was posted in May. In the words of DigitalJournal, "My personal opinion is that this will cut straight into Apple's market share and it may make the marketplace more competitive as it moves forward."

I'll reserve an opinion until I test out the site, but I have a hard time believing SpiralFrog is going to do much to transform the digital music landscape. The company's executive staff has been a revolving door, and the product launch is nearly a year behind schedule. Then there's that pesky problem with the iPod-incompatible file format. Free, ad-supported music could take off, but is this dysfunctional company the one to make it happen?

[music jobs] Brand and Online Marketing Manager at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.