With Limewire out of commission, many music lovers are suffering from repercussions of becoming accustomed to acquired music dishonestly. The $0.99 price tag for most single tracks is nothing to buy into for most listeners, especially those who boast collections of over 1000 songs. Somewhat of a relief to those endowed with less disposable income, Myxer delivers free content to users.
Delivering Free Content
Myxer’s self-declared goal is “to empower people through technology.” This encompasses giving users the ability to contribute to what Myxer is. Naturally, one would purchase a song from iTunes and, if they enjoy the track, purchase the accompanying ringtone. One of Myxer’s primary functions eliminates the second step of that process. Through the site, users can upload an audio file and create their own personalized ringtone from it. This can be convenient for music fans without the budget to purchase all the tunes they want, but sites like this also add to what Limewire was – it drains income from artists and corporations who make a living from the sale of both full-length songs and ringtones.
In addition to user-generated content, Myxer also hosts its own free ringtones, but the site has acquired permissions to allow free downloads of these ringtones. In addition to those, they provide paid ringtones from more popular songs whose creators aren’t yet willing to take the plunge on revenue. In fact, the selection of songs isn’t a majority of the most recent releases; most of what they offer for free is either tracks from underground music groups or dated singles that were highly popular in their day. However, the general lack of current music is offset by users’ ability to upload their own ringtones.
Mobile Stage
There exists another aspect of Myxer’s website meant to target any loose ends of the target audience. This feature is called MobileStage and provides another basis for delivering multimedia content online. The website provides two distinct account types: MobileArtist and MobilePartner. The artist membership is valid for creators of original content while the partner membership is valid for representatives of original content’s creator(s). The MobileStage feature allows up-and-coming bands to provide their content to Myxer for free in hopes of gaining publicity for their endeavors and adds another outlet for those artists’ business partners to profit.
These two features seem to be Myxer’s most inspiring functions, allowing underground musicians a place to showcase their talent in a society visited by millions of users. Because this content is completely user-based, Myxer probably won’t be seeing any tussles with the law for these components.
Get In The Mix?
Myxer has a little something to provide for most people, but certainly isn’t for everyone – and probably not for a lot of people. If you’re a typical fan of music, you’ll still have to pay for popular ringtones of recently released music. The site seems to cater more to bands hoping to release content to a large community without need for a label or major advertising.Myxer does have some quirks, but it is a small remedy for those who insist on acquiring their media illegally; unfortunately for that population, finding CDs in-store remains the best option. And for anyone who’s interesting in trending ringtones, Myxer certainly isn’t the place to get them any cheaper.
