AOL: Round and round goes the downward spiral

It's taken them a while, but AOL have broken off from sitting with their heads in their hands sobbing gently to launch a UK version of Spinner. I don't know if they didn't realise they could just do one version as it's on the internet, but it's done now.

Spinner.com launched in 2007 with one simple idea - that it was all about the music. Since then, it's become one of the most popular music sites in the US, and has launched international editions in Spain, Poland and Canada. Now it's the UK's turn.

I'm not quite sure why Poland got their site before the UK did. Oddly, spinnermusic.pl takes you back to the front of Spinner US, and you have to go to pl.spinner.com in order to get the Polish content. Which is splashing Michael Jackson and a lot of metal right now.

UK Editor Stephen Dowling's introduction is a little toe-curling in places - "hey, my crazy tastes must put a strain on my iTunes Genius function". But it seems heartfelt, and - hey - it's all about the music:

Spinner.com launched in 2007 with one simple idea - that it was all about the music.

Or, as the press release puts it:

“The vision for Spinner UK is to create a destination for passionate music fans beyond the Top 40, with a global pool of bloggers contributing music news across the world.”

The front page on launch day has items about Slipknot, Michael Jackson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg and Green Day. So not very far beyond the top 40, then.

Popcorn single feature

I'm going to embed this although I suspect the chances of anyone watching it all the way through in this window are slim-ish, but SnagFilms have made the Brian Jonestown Massacre/ Dandy Warhols film Dig! available to be sort-of-distributed through blogs.

Oh, hang about - it's not working:"AOL video is currently unavailable", apparently. Here's a link instead, in case they get it working later.

Songwriter's payday: AOL, Yahoo, Real told to dig deep

A Federal Judge in the US has settled the long-running debate about how much the major internet companies should be paying to songwriters. The judgement could be backdated to the start of the millennium; sample figures suggest that AOL will have to find six million dollars, for example, to cover 2006 alone.

Bragg wants Bebo cut

From a delightful "Dorset, England" byline, Billy Bragg delivers a piece for the New York Times taking a surprisingly Capitalist view of the AOL takeover - namely "lets have a bit of that stock action":

Michael Birch realized the value of his membership. I’m sure he’ll be rewarding those technicians and accountants who helped him achieve this success. Perhaps he should also consider the contribution of his artists.

The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise. Their investment is the content provided for free while the site has no liquid assets. Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.

What’s at stake here is more than just the morality of the market. The huge social networking sites that seek to use music as free content are as much to blame for the malaise currently affecting the industry as the music lover who downloads songs for free. Both the corporations and the kids, it seems, want the use of our music without having to pay for it.

We can see where Bragg is coming from - if music helped fuel Bebo's growth, then shouldn't the makers of that music be rewarded? But how would you even attempt to apportion any cash on that basis?

To say nothing of Bragg missing the point by a country mile: what is being sold when Bebo is flogged to AOL is not the music embedded in the site, but the people who are Beboids or Beboites or whatever they'd be called. The value in a social network lies not in the stuff people do on the network, but in the people who are attached to the network. If anyone should be getting a slice of the AOL gold, it's the members, not musicians, surely?

Monkeys for less than peanuts

Right now, as part of AOL's streaming of new CDs, you can hear all of Favourite Worst Nightmare. For free.

More trouble in paradise

Another Major Label In Trouble; this time Warners with uberhead of AOL Time Warner stepping down after the apes, ivory and peacocks he promised shareholders when AOL merged with Time Warner failed to materialise. Nothing to do with the complete over-statement of what AOL was worth, of course (no wonder their mascot's called Connie). More shake-ups expected soon throughout the group.

NME.com: Long term future behind closed doors?

Scary rumblings from the US, where AOL is planning to put all of the Time magazine titles (which it acquired when it lied about its value to force a merger) into its 'walled garden.'

Apparently, now the key message for all AOL companies is that if AOL goes down, the whole thing comes down.

You don't have to do too many sums on the backs of ciggie packets to see what this could mean for AOL's British magazine empire, which includes, of course, NME. It'll be worth keeping an eye on the American experience.