Crenk

A couple of weeks ago we wrote a very popular article that looked at several music communities from around the web. Today, I thought I would take this opportunity to let you know about another music community that wasnt mentioned, that being Jamendo.

Jamendo is a large resource for creative commons licensed music. Jamendo has created a platform that allows artists to distribute their music freely and legally, while earning royalties through a percentage of the advertising revenue.

The site itself currently has over 8500 albums available and rising. The design is very simple with a basic white background and has a distinctive colour scheme. On the home page itself I would definitly like to see more artists and not just one large artist promoted on the left hand side, but this is just a personal preference. I think the idea behind Jamendo is quite a good one, creative commons are becoming a lot more common and their is definitely a gap in the market for a music community like this. The advertising payment model is a good one, and is similar to Imeem and what are they are try to achieve. That being said, im not too sure about the Google ads on the site, im think that the click thru rate is quite low, due to the nature of the Jamendo business, a CPM model would be a much better idea.

Overall, Jamendo is a good idea with the right business model in place. I would like to see better advertising on the site itself, but im sure that will improve over time. Features within the site are rich and the design is unique and well done. Jamendo should become a great place to find new music from up and coming artists who are looking to promote their first few albums to gain some exposure.