CloudTrade: Free, Legal Music Sharing on Your Smartphone

Originally posted by Eliot Van Buskirk on Wired’s Listening Post

We’ve been tracking CloudTrade since February, when we got our first glance at its application for letting users share music for free via smartphone in return for watching video ads or playing games with a company logo as the songs download. The company has announced that music from its first two label deals, with ATO Records (Radiohead’s U.S. CD distributor) and the jam-band-friendly Sci Fidelity Records, is now available for trading on its network.

“Our market research taught us a valuable lesson in dealing with the next generation of music consumers,” said CloudTrade CEO Raj Kanapur. “Wherever possible, we must leverage advertisers’ desire to be in front of consumers on interactive mobile devices and offer a fully ad-supported free model of digital music downloading.”

Our hands-on test of the service last month confirmed what Kanapur first showed us: His application works, and it could offer music fans — especially young ones with more time than money — a great new way way to discover, share and listen to music without messing around with a computer or a credit card. CloudTrade is looking for up to 10,000 people to participate in the beta test of its smartphone app, which allows users to trade songs with each other through a mobile social network.

Music sharing and free downloads

Because these days…it’s all about sharing. So, we wanted to share the good news! In the next few days, we will publicly announce Cloudtrade’s newest content partners, ATO Records and SCI Fidelity Records. They will be offering their artists’ music free on our mobile platform. Artists include:

• Ben Kweller
• Gomez
• Rodrigo y Gabriela
• The Whigs
• The Disco Biscuits
• The Greyboy Allstars
• String Cheese Incident
• Umphrey’s McGee
• Railroad Earth
• and tons more!

To preview the catalog of available songs, log in at http://www.cloudtrade.com and choose “Search the Skies”. From there you can search by artist, genre or song title and find all of the music currently being offered. Explore and enjoy!

Also, please note…we just released an update for our mobile software. This update contains features to more easily find and share content. Log into your Cloudtrade account at http://www.cloudtrade.com and choose “Reinstall Software on my Phone” to make sure you’re up to date.

SHARE CLOUDTRADE WITH YOUR FRIENDS:
http://www.cloudtrade.com/inviteFriend.htm?TitleType=invite

Thanks!
Cloudtrade Team