Waxing the ear

Rcrdlbl.com (or record label... took me one or two seconds to get it) is where I hear of 80% of all the new music that enters my eardrums.

Rcrdlbl is a joint venture between Downtown Records (Gnarls Barkely and more) and Peter Rojas, an entrepreneur who founded the respected technology blogs (Gizmodo and Engadget). What is unique about it is that the music is free and DRM-free. What? How? The website is funded by advertisers--nikon, virgin, bmw, puma, and nokia so far.

In an era with shrinking CD sales, the rise of iTunes, and increasing music pipeline of mypace, its inevitable that the business model for music needs to change. The WSJ (yeah, WSJ) has a pretty interesting piece about rcrdlbl.

There. The cat is out of the bag.