Journal Ethelred Unraed's Journal: New project: Mindawn Online Music Service 10
It's called Mindawn and is a new online music service à la iTunes or Napster. What sets it apart from other services is:
- Pretty much no DRM. The client (which will be for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows) will allow you to preview the full song up to three times, but that's about the only built-in restriction. Otherwise, once you buy a song, there is no DRM used. You can convert it to any format and have it on as many devices as you want.
- Cross-platform. As mentioned above, the client will work with Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. You can also order songs with any halfway modern browser, though the preview function is only through the client.
- Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. As far as I know, this is the first online music service to offer music in Ogg and FLAC formats. Ogg Vorbis is of course a totally free alternative to MP3 and AAC; FLAC is essentially lossless, i.e. full CD-quality sound, and can be easily converted to AIFF, MP3 or whatever format you prefer. A FLAC and Ogg ripper called MARS is also provided for free on the website, though it's still in beta.
Another difference is the royalty and signup system. Anyone can register as an artist for a small fee and set up shop in a jiffy, and artists get 75% royalties (if the songs are exclusive to Mindawn) or 55% (if not exclusive).
FWIW I did the logo, much of the website design, much of the UI screen design for MARS and the Mindawn player and even an album cover or two. Admittedly the design was of the "knock it together" variety, as it's being done on a shoestring...
The client is in the final stages before release (some last-minute bugs prevented it from being released today).
Of course, the selection of music is still a little thin, but hey, whaddya want, the thing just started. *g* Most of it's progressive rock (thanks to the founder's connection to ProgRock Records).
Amazingly enough, Macworld is already covering it. And sure enough, someone's kvetching about the design in the comments already. *sigh*
Pricing (Score:2)
Re:Pricing (Score:3, Interesting)
If you do a search for "a" and sort the songs by length (click twice to sort with the longest songs first), you'll see what I mean.
BTW the previews are also in Ogg, so you'll hear what the "lossy" version sounds like right off the bat. The previews are watermarked, though, so they are slightly more lossy than other
Re: (Score:1)
I won't complain about the design . . . (Score:2)
I can't complain about the design because the site's been slashdotted.
Re:I won't complain about the design . . . (Score:2)
Admittedly it's a little odd. Then again, the founder's main company is, after all, "theKompany.com". ;-)
I can't complain about the design because the site's been slashdotted.
Eh? Working like a charm over here, though admittedly it's only 1:30 pm German time (i.e. 4:30 am California time).
AFAIK only MacCentral has mentioned it, though. Slashdot hasn't picked up on it yet, though the Big Boss hasn't submitted it yet (waiting until the Linux client is ready).
Cheers,
Re:I won't complain about the design . . . (Score:2)
Took about 60 to 90 seconds for the main page to (start to) show up when I wrote my previous comment. Nice and zippy now.
Re:I won't complain about the design . . . (Score:2)
new site (Score:2)
(Nice logo, btw)
Re:new site (Score:2)
Whoa! Really? What does it sell? pr0n, I hope!!!!11!11!1!!!
(Nice logo, btw)
Thanks!
Cheers,
Ethelred
Re:new site (Score:2)
Yep! Non-stop pr0n pictures of mekkab totally naked, nude!!!!111!11one! Sounds hot!!!1111!1!1one1one~!one!tilda!one!