Tamago recently launched a peer-to-peer commerce system that enables people to sell digital media directly to customers. It's designed for semi-professional and amateur people who publish music, videos, photos, e-books, etc. to earn royalties whenever their creative content is downloaded. Meanwhile the buyers can also earn commissions, for distributing media to others.
Tamago was founded in 2005 by Sony Music Executive Joel Floyd. On Joel's LinkedIn page, he is listed as being a past Principal Architect/Developer at Sony Music. Tamago is based in San Francisco.
Tamago claims it is the only Peer-to-Peer eCommerce market. The service is described on the homepage:
"Built by artists for artists, Tamago connects its members' computers into one big network, giving each member the power to sell the things they create and to make money from the stuff they buy.
Tamago ensures the publisher of a file receives a royalty every time it is sold. Members who distribute files to other members during a sale earn commissions."
The royalty rates are set by the artists. There is also security around copyright, which Tamago says prevents artistic works from being re-published and stolen. To participate in this system, you need to download the Tamago P2P software and register for the service. Tamago requires a PC running Windows 2000 or XP or an Intel based Apple Computer running Parallels Desktop or Boot Camp from Apple Computer.
I do like the concept of customers being not just consumers of media, but distributors too. In fact I kind of wish the mainstream P2P music systems like Napster worked like this - giving the 'consumers' a commission for distributing an artist's work! Perhaps that will be reality in the future, but for now I really like where Tamago is heading with this product.
It has to be noted that currently the Tamago website looks like a work in progress - and it's not clear whether they have many artists or customers on board yet. But they've just launched, so I am certainly willing to cut them some slack on that. Tamago is a promising application of P2P, so it'll be interesting to see if it gains any traction.
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I think weedshare is built upon a similar model, in that the consumers that share content are compensated as are the artists. Weedshare launched in ~2003. Weedshare supports several distribution mechanisms as well as P2P.
It would be interesting to ask representatives from both Tamago and Weedshare how their products differ.
I don't use WeedShare myself, but I did perform a technical evaluation for a client, shortly after it launched.
Weedshare
http://www.weedshare.com/
Posted by: old school developer | October 27, 2006 10:07 AM
Tamago compensates with cash...you have an account, like a bank account, and make withdraws from those accounts.
I'm not sure how weedshare works, I believe it forces you to have a website...Tamago runs off your desktop...also, with Tamago, you can sell anything digital; while weedshare is only music based.
from the weddshare site, "You can become a music distributor instantly by purchasing a collection of Weed files and posting them on a Web site."
not many people wanna make/have a website; The idea behind Tamago is to turn everyone's computer/device into something they can use to make money.
I also know they are adding community aspects, so you can browse other people's media collections; and there profile.
Posted by: lemonobrien | October 27, 2006 3:38 PM
I went checking around weedshare, and found out that if you want to sell your music you have to go through a "weedshare" provider...which is bullshit.
Tamago is for the artist...you use your computer to make music; save to file, start Tamago and publish right there, leave it onw while you sleep, and make some cash. Next day, work on a new tune, and do it again.
Tamago is a real p2p network..."not, buy some music to put on your website."
Posted by: lemonobrien | October 27, 2006 3:50 PM
I want to clarify something Lemon Obrian stated in comment number 2. The upcoming community aspect of Tamago will NOT allow one to peruse another's disk, just their Tamago media folder and their profile.
One biggie not mentioned about Tamago is that publishing digital media is free. That's untimate democracy in publishing. On the other hand, if you publish someone else's stuff you're gonna get whopped with a wrecking ball!
Posted by: feier1 | October 27, 2006 4:34 PM
I know weedshare. its a file format...they use Window's DRM; they just try to spread it over the internet...no one cares...i don't think you really make money...it has some wacky formula.
I haven't used Tamago.
Posted by: calistoga | October 27, 2006 4:54 PM
osd, thanks for pointing out weedshare. I will check that out.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 27, 2006 9:07 PM
Pretty sweet idea.
Posted by: David Mackey | October 27, 2006 10:28 PM
One small thing : You don't just need to be running Parallels Desktop or Boot Camp for this to run on an Intel based Mac, you also need a copy on Win 2000 or XP. And of course, the DRM means you can't easily transfer and view the files in your OS-X environment. So in short - it only works on Windows.
The fact that they're even trying to pass this off as a 'Macintosh requirement' is a farce. Imagine marketing a piece of 'Windows' software and telling the user they just needed to install Xen and Red Hat to run it.
Given that it only really becomes viable (as a money making tool) if you're running it all the time in the background, neither Bootcamp or Parallels is really that acceptable a solution (running two operating systems eats memory. Rebooting between operating systems means it's not running).
Shame really - the concept is good (I'd like to see an open but monetised creative market-place to see how it compares with the free and publisher dominated ones) but I'd have thought the content producers they're aiming at are actually more likely to be using Macs than the general population (they are the dominant platform in recording studios. Don't know the stats with photographers or video work, but I know they are popular).
Posted by: JulesLt | October 30, 2006 12:52 AM
we're planing to port it to Mac; we went windows first b/c of market size. We know it does work with Parallels Desktop and Boot Camp b/c we've had Apple engineers test it.
Also, Tamago is not a DRM; after you buy a file, it is saved to your harddisk, and you can save it anywhere you want; whatever format it was published under, is the format it is saved as...so if you sell .aac files, your customers get .aac files...or .mp3 etc.
Posted by: joel | October 30, 2006 11:16 AM