SpiralFrog will probably take some of Apple's marketshare

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The rumour going around is saying that the delay of the free legal SpiralFrog music download application (link) is related to them moving away from traditional PlaysForSure DRM and talking with the record industry, MP3 manufactures and advertising agencies on creating their own closed market. Much like iPod-iTunes and Zune-Zune Marketplace. The only difference is that the service will be free.

How it works:
Unlike other legal download services, SpiralFrog will be entirely supported by advertising. In order to download a song, the customer must watch a 90-second advertisement, and may then proceed to the download link. It has been reported that songs downloaded cannot be transferred onto a CD or given to a friend. It has also been reported that the customer must visit the site once a month to keep their license, though the song will lose its license after 6 months, ending its ability to play. [wikipedia]

Their alternative is that the music downloaded from their application will be free supported by advertisements. Their previous plan was asking the user to watch mandatory 90-second commercial before they could download the song. But they found that it may not be able to earn enough potential revenue from advertisers.

The speculated new plan is to also advertise on your MP3 player along with your music file. So when you listen to your favourite song, you will see an ad being displayed on your screen. Their will probably some other hassles like maybe advertisement between each track and the possibility of not being able to skip or forward past ads. These advertisements will get updated with your firmware and may potentially require you to update firmware on a regular basis. But many would prefer doing this than paying 99cents per track (its human nature).

If they are able to get a good partner on their side such as Samsung to aid them in the venture, it may be a success. But the most important factors are that it needs to look great and be pretty cheap or at least include a cheap model. And preferably variations of flash and hard drive players.

And the potential for videos is also very likely with commercials embedded that can't be skipped through. The only issue is that a person may not watch the commercial and just put it in their pocket during the commercials. But then again people go to the washroom during TV commercials and show up late for Movie commercials. So we may potentially see NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC and The CW programming on the service.

Primarily why this has a bigger potential than taking on the MP3 Empire that is Apple than Microsoft is because the songs will be FREE. Ideally a DRM should be added that keeps the content on a limited amount of products. It has been announced that the songs will not be compatible with iPods and Zunes, and the new plan would indicate incompatibility with all PlaysForSure players too.

So this spring when Spiral Frog eventually comes out (if there is no delay) we better keep a close eye on it.