Article Summary: 'Bebo Opens Music Store' By Jemima Kiss

The key points of this article (published on Wednesday 28th March 2007, mediaguardian.co.uk) are:

• Social networking website Bebo is introducing a music download service allowing bands to sell music.
• Prior to this, bands have been able to upload their own tracks.
• The new indiestore service, in partnership with web music firm 7digital, allows bands to upload and sell four tracks, with the band keeping 70% of the revenue.
• Bands can upgrade to a "pro" service to sell up to 20 tracks and keep 80% of the revenue.
• Unlike MySpace, Bebo only allows selected companies to supply widgets or plug-in services to the site but indiestore is the only music widget for the site.
• MySpace introduced a music-buying service in September 2006 in partnership with Snocap, but the service has not yet been extended to the UK.
• The 7digital managing director, Ben Drury, said "We don't believe that people are comfortable entering credit card details in a widget" - this is an example of a drwaback of the new media technology and how the audience want to enjoy the pros of it but are aware and cautious of the cons.
• As a result, the institutions have to adapt their products, so Bebo users can also buy tracks with PayPal, through BT Click and Buy and by text message.
• Bebo currently has 450,000 registered bands.
• MySpace has 6.5m registered bands.
• This is a great example of how the audience are being given more control and choice - a CD shop (a real one on the highstreet that is) would never be able to hold 6.5m artists in one location, but the internet and MySpace allows this to be done quite easily with a few clicks of a button.
• Web monitoring firm comScore last week ranked Bebo as the third most popular UK website in terms of visits during February, and the 15th most popular site in unique users.