Let Amazon and eMusic duke it out over who’s number two.
Because when it comes to the third-place ranking within the music download space, SpiralFrog is the sole claimant. On Wednesday, the ad-supported company pointed to a registered user base of roughly 850,000, the basis for its self-proclaimed ranking.
Incidentally, the company pointed to Rhapsody as the number two download destination, a ranking that has been suggested before. Of course, in the absence of verifiable, industry-agreed numbers, the conflicting claims are difficult to verify. The iTunes Store is indisputably number one, though ironically, illegally-acquired downloads easily surpassed all paid download volumes combined.
Elsewhere, eMusic recently disclosed a paid download volume of seven million monthly, though subscribers buy downloads bundled upfront. Amazon has yet to disclose any numbers, raising suspicions of a flat performance.
SpiralFrog currently offers a catalog of roughly one million songs, and offers WMA-protected downloads alongside targeted advertisements.