As promised, I signed up for We7, and downloaded the sample songs being offered. The current offerings are intended as a tech demo, and it would be unfair to judge them from the selection being offered currently. But when the best track available is by Hall and Oats, that's not the best sign. Some nice jazz tunes were available, the best of those being Rick Guard's swinging "The Truth About Love" (though that file sounded a bit muddled to me, at least in the bass). Currently, each file is affixed with a very brief commercial for We7 itself, much like a radio station I.D. spot. Not too annoying, but not particularly interesting. The files have no DRM, as advertised, and as one would imagine, skipping the commercials is quite easy.

I was satisfied enough with this taste of the We7 service that I will be keeping an eye on it, and will put it through its paces when it goes live. I'm highly skeptical of its business model, but I wish them the best. I suppose most people will listen to the ads the first time they play a song, if only to see how long the ad is so they can tell iTunes how far ahead to skip in subsequent playings. So advertisers are paying a dollar or so for every ad impression. Seems high to me, but I suppose the market will decide.

Peter Gabriel has opened We7, an online music store that will give away free music tracks, DRM-free, with ten-second commercials attached. After four weeks, you can re-download the track, but without the commercial. While I'm not wildly crazy about the idea, it's not terrible. If it has a good selection (which I doubt it will), or at least a good interface that helps you find good music amongst the obscure offerings, it might be a nice, free way to discover new artists. I just can't imagine the ad revenue will be substantial enough to make this worth the time of any working musicians. Especially since it would be pretty easy to remove or bypass the commercial from a DRM-free file. Just tell iTunes to start playing the file at the ten-second mark; you don't even need to edit the file. But if the commercial's not obnoxious, and you have a commercial-free file coming in a few weeks, maybe users won't bother to skip it. I'm skeptical this will work out as a viable business, but I'll give it a shot when it goes live.

UPDATE: Apparently, We7 expects to make about $1.20 per download in advertising fees. This number strikes me as absurd, but I don't pretend to be an expert in advertising. I also see that there are some sample songs already available, if you register for the site; when I get home, I'll download me some Coolio or Bananarama and let you know how the experience goes.