(editor’s note - this is an expanded version of a comment on Techcrunch’s piece on Amazon powering MySpace Music’s backend).

With rumors swirling around the upcoming (September?) launch of MySpace’s music service, the real question is, will anyone care? As a digital distributor myself, I have yet to see evidence of high-traffic destinations actually generating sales of music downloads. Consumers seem to have a giant wall between their online entertainment and commerce destinations. A brief history:

Circa 2003/04 - PressPlay rebrands under Napster a formerly “free” consumption service. Today, Napster is the most frequently cited takeover target of digital music services.

Circa 2004 - AOL acquires MusicNow to offer download and subscriptions to the massive userbase of 20-25 MM/month music visitors. Today, Musicnow has been shuttered and Rhapsody powers the minimal revenue AOL receives from music.

Circa 2005 - Yahoo launches YMU, promising to turn traffic firehose and $6.99 price point into huge sea change for subscription business. Today, Yang can’t even afford to maintain the servers managing the DRM licenses. Another fun fact - our Yahoo revenue was the most disappointing of all - at about .00025% of iTunes for our clients.

Circa 2005/6 - MTV launches URGE. Crickets.

Today - contrast the above to retail focused sites launching services: Amazon has grown dramatically in first 9 months. Still a fraction of iTunes, but actually growing. Upstarts like AmieStreet demonstrate a real financial trend, and niche sites like Turntable Lab and Beatport servicing specialty markets with retail focus actually do business.

MySpace has yet to say anything about actual experience differentiators. You I can already stream music for free there, provided the browser doesn’t crash, and you remember to turn off the bands 15 other Reverbnation, Musicane, RockYou and NeverStopsFlashingForNoReason widgets.

A long comment, but final thoughts: with social advertising CPMs at rock bottom prices, there is little guarantee that MySpace is even demonstrating advertising value to companies to adequately cover even streaming costs of that much media.

DashGo’s statistics tracking monitors streams for bands on MySpace, Last.FM and YouTube among others. Once a band reaches a certain threshold - say around 1 million total streams, Last.fm and YouTube traffic tends to outpace MySpace, perhaps demonstrating that MySpace isn’t yet a compelling destination to consume music in the long run.

That’s the skeptic in me. But I hope they find a way to really deliver music to their users in a way that works great and is universally embraced. I hope we don’t see the Rhapsody powered MySpace music store in 15 months, as much as I like Rhapsody. Consumers need good options.

Robert Scoble style, I’m posting another link to media containing DashGo. I was lucky to join the MyAWOL folks yesterday for a quick discussion on mobile music for their podcast. If you’ve got 30 minutes and need to know the future of mobile music from an indie artist and label perspective you can tune in at: http://myawol.podbean.com/2008/06/19/myawol-music-insider-newstalk-episode-4-mobile-media/

For more info visit DashGo.com or send an email to me at benp (at) dashgo.com

Astute readers, both of you, may know that DashGo is the technology engine powering Audio Bee artists, indie labels like Delicious Vinyl and several others. What DashGo does is provide a single point of distribution for artists and labels to publish content across digital music stores and track consumption across social networking sites. We monitor activity on the top spots, and benchmark performance so we can make better marketing, advertising and release decisions.

We are rolling out support to a few more sites over the next two weeks, and are in a fierce internal discussion about the future best bets for growth. Directions we may go…

1) Analytics + Logistics support for labels and content owners:

a) Nielsen rankings for social media consumption

b) Distribution and Publishing of content to social media networks

c) Distribution of media assets to digital stores, subscription services and ad-supported channels

2) Distribution + Marketing Powerhouse

a) Full-scale digital media distribution and publishing to storefronts and social networks

b) Aggressive royalty collection and rates

c) Integrated marketing solutions to tie together online press, publicity, advertising and sales

3)  Advertising Strategy

a) Analytics for brands and sponsors to identify artists that appeal to their target demos

b) Integration into artist content campaigns to optimize online ad buys and campaigns

As digital music fans,  artists or afficianados, what  are you looking for? Comments are open.

It’s a humbling experience to launch a company. Especially if that company is a website. And you don’t code. You have to trust the vision and ability to communicate a respectable set of requirements to capable designers. I hope we’ve done that for artists with DashGo. We’re looking for people to poke some holes into our dream…inquire within: www.dashgo.com

Audio Bee (that is, me) is excited to announce our latest distribution partner - LaLa. Look for Audio Bee artists on LaLa.com in the near future…

Here’s their “mission” statement:

“Working with our friends in the music industry, we’re reinventing digital music with discovery built-in and sharing enabled. What you’re about to experience is funded by you. We believe that giving you a music experience completely re-mastered for the Web, you’ll want to own music more than ever.

Take your iTunes library and all your digital music online. Play from the convenience of the Web and share again in safety without viruses and taboos of P2P. When you’ve discovered a new artist, listen to their entire album and not just 30 second samples. We’ll be paying for songs to make sure the artists are being compensated. LALA.COM will get rewarded when you decide to own that music.

Anything you buy from us is ready for your iPod. Whether you choose to buy physical CDs or digital albums, your purchase is about owning the music you love bundled with the convenience of having it accessible online.”

that’s a lotta fancy talk for “we sell mp3s” and “you can listen before you buy.” but maybe it’ll work. good luck.www.lala.com