SoundLoud.coms Digital Music Player Targets Consumers, Music Pros

In a world where downloading music is extremely popular, SoundLoud.com, a provider of digital music distribution services, has developed a device that will make purchasing and releasing music both easy and beneficial to music industry professionals.

SoundLoud.com announced Nov. 6 that they have launched the SoundStation Music store, a digital music player that includes a built-in shopping cart that allows for seamless purchasing of music downloads.

Created for both artists and managers/management in the music industry, SoundLoud.com music services will allow registered artists and labels to upload and manage their content, set pricing, track royalties and accept major credit card payments for MP3 music downloads through the SoundStation Music store.

Music artists and bands will also be able to sell their music directly from their MySpace profile, their official artist Web site or any other traffic-driven Web page, giving the artist the opportunity to generate sales.

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Sunil Wilkinson, co-founder and senior vice president of SoundLoud.com, told eWEEK that "the goal of the SoundStation Music store is to create a ubiquitous marketplace for digital music consumption."

Wilkinson said that SoundLouds infrastructure is designed for three different types of users in the music industry: the music artist entrepreneur, the music artist manager/management team and for social network partnerships.

"The music artist entrepreneur will be able to create a SoundStation Music store through SoundLoud.com and seamlessly promote and sell their music through any Web site they control such as an official artist Web site, social networks and blogs," Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson further explained that "the artists manager or management team will be able to conveniently manage multiple music artists and SoundStation Music stores under one account while a business user would receive a revenue share of all music sales generated within their social network."

The digital music distribution service provides users with an in-depth account management dashboard that allows users to keep track of all the views, plays and purchases made through their SoundStation Music store.

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"We have built the most robust and extensible online music management system allowing artists and record labels to effectively control every aspect of promoting and selling music on the Internet," Shaun Newsum, the other co-founder and CEO of SoundLoud.com, said in a company release.

Wilkinson believes that this new service has the potential for growth. "With a competitive royalty rate, 33 cent fee per 99 cent track sold, we believe that we can accomplish tremendous growth within the next year or so."

Wilkinson also stated that the SoundStation Music store will continue to develop over the next year, adding that by the summer of 2007, the SoundStation Music store will roll out a set of new features to include albums and unlimited uploads for entire music collections.

For consumers, the SoundStation Music store will allow unlimited ability to stream, store and re-download purchased music as well as being able to have access to their music from anywhere.

SoundLoud services are available for free.

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