改变在线音乐游戏规则的三剑客

    由于唱片销量锐减，多年来唱片公司一直在亏钱（虽然在2011年上半年，销售额自2004年以来首次出现小幅上升）。主要原因在于盗版和高速网络：对于宽带用户而言，非法下载整张唱片也就需要花上几分钟，点击几下鼠标。总之，唱片公司被迫在音乐发行和销售方面进行创新。

    有些公司看清了形势，开发出了可以跨平台（台式机、平板电脑、智能手机）使用的在线产品和服务，并将其与免费产品、社交网络以及个性化相结合。他们在试图寻找新的生财之道，同时也正在改变我们聆听和发现新音乐的方式。

    以下是三项值得一提的服务，其中既包括已有十来年历史的“老将”，也有推出仅两个月的“新兵”。

    创始人：丹尼尔•尔克、马丁•罗伦宗

    用户数：1，000万

    业务模式：这项简单而合法的“不限量”音乐服务于2008年推出，在欧洲部分地区大受欢迎，其创新性的免费增值模式（freemium model）使用户能免费聆听1，300多万首歌曲，这与其竞争对手（比如Rhapsody就要求每月预付订阅费）形成鲜明对比。尔克表示：“我们希望给用户创造这样一种感觉，即全世界的音乐都触手可及。”在这方面，Spotify比苹果（Apple）的iTunes行动迅速得多，而且做得也更好。尽管其所有音乐都“在云端上”，但感觉上它们就在用户的硬盘里。

    盈利模式：用户不用花一分钱就能使用该服务，但“免费”版本中有广告，而且对于播放音乐的小时数以及每首歌每月能播放的次数都有限制。Spotify的付费计划费用可高达每月10美元，其付费用户可在自己的移动设备上储存歌曲。尔克相信，将准入门槛设置得尽可能的低——最初的免费听歌——加之极佳的用户体验，对于招揽用户十分重要。到目前为止，这一策略似乎很奏效：其1千万用户中，有100万为付费用户。目前，Spotify服务尚未登陆美国，不过该公司称，正在签署登陆美国所需要的一些许可协议。

    For years, record labels lost money as album sales plummeted (at least until recently, when for the first time since 2004, sales inched up during the first half of 2011). Piracy and high-speed Internet share much of the blame: For users with broadband connections, downloading illegal torrents of entire albums can take minutes and a few mouse clicks. For better or worse, labels and companies have been forced to innovate in music distribution and sales.

    A few companies have really wised up, developing and iterating online products and services that take cross-platform use -- desktop, tablet, smartphone -- and combine it with free offerings, social networking, and personalization. They're transforming the way we listen to and discover new music while trying to find new ways to make money.

    From a decade-old veteran to a two-month-old newbie, here are three services leaving their mark.

    Spotify

    Founders: Daniel Ek, Martin Lorentzon

    Userbase: 10 million

    Spotify

    What it does: Launched in 2008, the simple, legal "all-you-can-eat" music service made waves in parts of Europe with an innovative freemium model that lets users listen to over 13 million tracks for free, a stark contrast to competitors like Rhapsody that require upfront monthly paid subscriptions. "The essential feeling we wanted to create was to have all of the world's music available at your fingertips," says Ek. To that end, Spotify is wicked fast, and snappier than Apple's (AAPL) iTunes. Though all its music resides "in the cloud," it feel like it lives on your hard drive.

    How it makes money: Users don't have to pay a cent upfront to tune in, but the "free" tier is ad supported and places caps on the number of hours music can be streamed and the number of times a song can be listened to each month. Spotify's premium plans scale up to $10 a month and lets users store songs on their mobile devices. Ek believes that presenting as low a barrier of entry as possible -- that initial free listening -- and coupling it with a sharp user experience is important to reeling in users. So far, it seems to be working: 1 million of his 10 million users are paid subscribers. Spotify is not yet available in the U.S., but the company says it is signing the remaining licensing deals it needs to launch here.

    Turntable.fm

    创始人：赛斯•戈德斯坦，比尔•奇森

    用户数：30万

    业务模式：Turntable.fm推出仅一月有余，该服务的卖点是“社交听歌”。每位用户获得一个帐号，然后可以用这个账号进入许多类似于聊天室的听歌室。凭借其音乐播放列表，他们可以成为该听歌室中五名DJ之一，轮流从MediaNet提供的该网站现有歌曲库或是自己的硬盘中挑选歌曲播放。听众可以评定某首歌曲是“差劲”还是“棒极了”。多次获得差评的歌曲将被跳过，而多次获得好评的歌曲其DJ的帐号将获得更多的个性化选择以示奖励。

    盈利模式：目前该产品尚无盈利模式。目前该服务仍是免费的，但需获邀请才能使用，不过，据称该服务向其所播放歌曲的发行商以及非营利机构Sound Exchange支付费用，后者是一家收取版税的机构。

    潘多拉（Pandora）

    创始人：蒂姆•韦斯特戈林

    用户数：9，000万

    业务模式：在这三项服务中，推出已有11年的潘多拉历史悠久得多，也主流得多。（毕竟，Spotify尚未登陆美国，而Turntable.fm今年五月才刚刚推出。）用户们可以根据演唱者、歌曲名或演奏者创建“电台”，这些“电台”根据用户的品味播放和定制音乐。假如你“喜欢”某首歌曲，那么潘多拉将播放更多类似的歌曲。而假如你不“喜欢”某首歌，那么你再也不会听到它。

    盈利模式：该服务尚无盈利模式。尽管有广告，而且收入正在增长，但潘多拉一直没有实现盈利，因为每首歌曲每播放一次，其支付给唱片公司的版税都高于自身的广告收入。因此，自2000年成立以来，潘多拉已经亏损9，210万美元。该公司首次公开发行的申请文件称，其高管预计，这种情况至少到明年不会改变，不过，《财富》此前已经指出，这一预测可谓过度乐观。

    Founders: Seth Goldstein, Bill Chasen

    Userbase: 300,000

    Turntable.fm

    What it does: Launched little more than a month ago, Turntable.fm is all about "social listening." Each user gets an avatar he or she can use to enter various chat rooms-turned-listening rooms. With music playlists in tow, they can become one of five featured DJs in the room, taking turns cranking music out from either the site's current music library, provided by MediaNet, or their own hard drives. Listeners can then deem tracks "lame" or "awesome." Those songs with many "lame" votes are skipped, while songs with enough "awesome" votes reward the DJs with features like more personalization options for their avatars. And if they like a song that much, they can add it to their own playlist, buy it off iTunes, or find it via Last.fm or Spotify.

    How it makes money: It doesn't. There isn't a business model to speak of yet. The currently-invite-only service remains free, though it reportedly pays fees to Sound Exchange, a non-profit rights organization that collects royalty fees, and publishers for every track played.

    Pandora

    Founder: Tim Westergren

    Userbase: 90 million

    What it does: Of the three services, 11-year-old Pandora (P) is by far the oldest and most mainstream. (After all, Spotify isn't even in the U.S. yet, and Turntable.fm just launched in May.) Users create music "stations" based on artist, track, or composer that stream and customize music based on users' tastes. "Like" a particular track, and Pandora will play more similar songs. If you don't "like" it, you'll never hear it again.

    How it makes money: Well, it doesn't. Despite ads and growing revenues, Pandora has never actually turned a profit due to the fact that the royalty fees it pays music labels every time a song is streamed are higher the company's ad revenues. Which is why it's incurred $92.1 million in losses since it was founded in 2000. According to Pandora's pre-IPO filing, it's a situation company execs don't expect to change until at least next year, but as Fortune has pointed out, that's pretty darn optimistic.