MP3.com
MP3.com was originally a pure Exchange market for music , named after the music format MP3 . The site was founded by Michael Robertson . On July 20, 1999, MP3.com went public.
The site was very popular with independent musicians to market their work. On December 2, 2003, the site was closed after being taken over by CNET . In addition to the download of the pieces of music, hit lists were also offered, grouped by genre or location, as well as statistical data that gave the artists information about the popularity of their pieces. Musicians had three different subscriptions with different features to choose from: free, gold or platinum accounts. It was free to download, but users had to sign up with an email . In addition to the gold and platinum accounts, MP3.com made money primarily with banner advertising .
Many artists have offered their music on MP3.com.
The new owner of the MP3.com domain first put the service back into operation as a platform for established artists and linked it with the Gamespot.com and TV.com services as an entertainment network. In November 2006 the original concept started again to offer all artists and fans a common platform for the publication of music, videos and accompanying information.
MP3.com for fans
For fans, i.e. users who only consume music but do not want to produce it themselves, MP3.com offers unlimited access to free music and videos from already established artists. In addition, fans can download more than 60,000 free files with interviews, music and video recordings of new artists. Every fan has the opportunity to start their own fan blog and save their own profile. Changes to preferred artists and albums are automatically tracked. Fans can also use the community opportunities: they can assign rankings to groups, write their own reviews, submit comments and exchange ideas on the groups' message boards. These options are pretty much the same as MP3.com's original approach.
MP3.com for bands
Band members can use all possibilities that fans also have, but are additionally supported. Bands can upload up to 100 megabytes of their own music via MP3.com, supplemented by up to 10 megabytes of photos and an unlimited amount of their own music videos. Bands can use special links to make their proximity to other bands in the same category public and ask fans to vote on their own band. Artists are provided with their own blog tools and can manage their forums themselves. The band tools are supplemented by automatically generated RSS feeds of new publications, which in turn fans can incorporate on their pages to stay up to date. The artist charts, which are updated daily, should be an important element of feedback.