The new we7

Theodoric · 29-09-2011, 14:15

If you're a we7 user and you haven't logged in for the past couple of days you may well be in for a rude awakening. The free on demand service has been, to all intents and purposes, axed and you are simply left with a streaming radio service. So, forget about thumbing through the available albums and selecting one to listen to.

They do, in a bout of unbridled generosity, give a you magnificent 50 tracks per month that you can call up. Mind you Spotify's free 10 hours per month equates to about 150 tracks, three times the we7 50 tracks.

Ah, well, I suppose all good things must come to an end. Any suggestions for a replacement?

**Chris** · 29-09-2011, 15:21

Never heard of it ...

Theodoric · 29-09-2011, 16:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

Never heard of it ...

Well, in this country I'd say that it was second only to Spotify. You name an album and there was a good chance that you could find it there and listen to all of it, with an occasional small ad between the tracks. An excellent source of free and totally legal music. Alas, it is now all history.

**Chris** · 29-09-2011, 16:32

At a guess I'd say that the legality of those sorts of services is somewhat dubious. Spotify has gone to great lengths to get proper licensing deals in place, which is the reason it has steadily pared back its 'free' service; the licensing is very expensive and makes free music streaming almost impossible to sustain.

v0id · 29-09-2011, 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

At a guess I'd say that the legality of those sorts of services is somewhat dubious. Spotify has gone to great lengths to get proper licensing deals in place, which is the reason it has steadily pared back its 'free' service; the licensing is very expensive and makes free music streaming almost impossible to sustain.

We7, Deezer, Grooveshark, along with Spotify all have licensing deals with some ..if not most major labels.

**Chris** · 29-09-2011, 17:38

The difference between Spotify and Grooveshark, for example, is that Spotify established licensing deals prior to launch and didn't feature material where there was no license. Grooveshark appears to have put stuff up and then either been sued or come to terms later.

**Russ** · 29-09-2011, 18:12

Let me guess, a representative from We7 will appear at any moment....

we7steve · 29-09-2011, 18:20

Hi Guys,
Just jumping in as there are a few misconceptions in this thread

1) With the new we7 you get unlimited personal radio listening PLUS 50 request s for On-Demand songs and albums each month. You can create personal stations of great music from Songs Artists or Genres plus we have some great curated stations for inspiration

2)Less than 2% of our users actually do more than 50 song requests a month

3) Music through a legal site such as ours is never free, we pay out a lot, but we have to strike the right balance of giving you as much music as possible and paying a fair rate. Being illegal until your sued is not good for artists.

4) We know that the new service is not for everyone by we strongly believe that by making the music access simpler it will provide more music for more people and it allows us to keep it free.

5) You still have the full service available and you can access it at subscription.we7.com for as little as £4.99 a month if your value music as highly as I do.

Give it a little time you may be surprised.

Finally check this out its a really cool journey through the top streaming UK artists for 2011 [ADMIN EDIT: third party link removed, posted without permission]

Steve

**Russ** · 29-09-2011, 18:26

Oh, what a surprise...

Hom3r · 29-09-2011, 18:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Russ

Oh, what a surprise...

**Chris** · 29-09-2011, 18:48

Russ is cheating, he's just sat watching the new user registration emails coming in.

Theodoric · 29-09-2011, 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by we7steve

<Snip>
1) With the new we7 you get unlimited personal radio listening PLUS 50 request s for On-Demand songs and albums each month. <Snip>

OK, this magic number 50. The above post mentions 50 songs and albums (my emphasis). Now, the albums bit seems very unclear. Here and in one other we7 statement I have seen albums mentioned, everywhere else it is only 50 songs.

So, let me put a direct question to we7steve. As a registered free user can I actually request up to 50 complete albums each month. If so, then I am perfectly happy with the new we7, if not then, as far as I am concerned, we7 is dead in the water.

I await with interest a definitive response.

we7steve · 29-09-2011, 19:33

Its 50 songs, so an album of 10 songs takes 10 requests. Any song you skip or don't play you will not lose that request.

Don't forget the unlimited radio which feeds you music based on what you tell us to start it

Also see point 2 - If you are one of the 2% then you must love music enough to give it a value and the monthly charge is tremendous value.

Time will tell if we are dead in the water, I doubt but it is different I grant you that.

To show how strong we feel about our users here is a Promo code which you can sign into our subs site and it will give you 3 months full on-demand subscription all I ask is that you give the radio with request service a true trial.

Code is 6EAKC943WXE3 as long as Russ leaves it in the thread it is UK only and is enough to work for everyone in this thread to use ( Including Russ & Chris) - Enjoy
Cheers
Steve

Theodoric · 29-09-2011, 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by we7steve

Its 50 songs, so an album of 10 songs takes 10 requests. Any song you skip or don't play you will not lose that request.
<Snip>
Cheers
Steve

Well, I'd say that a typical album is more like 12-14 songs, so we're talking 4 albums, and possibly even only 3 per month.

Spotify gives you 10 free hours per month, which equates roughly to 10 albums per month. So Spotify is about 3 times more generous than we7. Why can't we7 show the same generosity?

As we have someone from we7 perhaps I could ask a few technical questions.

1) How do I view the albums available from we7 with their track lists and is this as easy as with the old we7?

2) Do I have to actually request each album track separately as opposed to simply asking for the album, as was the case before?

3) When I have collected all the tracks how do I combine them into one so that I can listen to album as one continuous "track" as was the previous case?

4) Can I save this information for further playing or do I have to use a further dozen or so of my 50 requests if I wish to hear it again? With the old version of we7 I didn't have to worry about this.

we7steve · 30-09-2011, 07:38

The new we7 is designed to be different and as such somethings are not comparable we have designed this for people who love music and what to be entertained without having to do much work. The full premium service is really designed for the type of things you are asking for and works great.

Re generosity you are not comparing apples with apples you get unlimited music listening with we7.

To your questions
1) track listings not available
2) No you can select an album and all tracks are queued to be played in order and then it returns to your radio when album finished
3)It is continuous moving seamlessly between Radio plays we choose and track/albums you have queued up
4)Recent requests you have made are remember and available to request again.

Top line is the free we7 is about listening to great music without effort the premium we7 is about controlling and listening to great music. They are different and many of the 'strange' restrictions is driven by the complexities of music licensing.

Free music is expensive to deliver, we think we have found a balance that give most people great music free and an option to have total control for a small monthly price

Hope that helps

Steve