7digital Opens Up With New Partner and Developer Programmes

• - New Application Programming Interface (API) allows developers to create new music applications on web, desktop or mobile devices
• - API supports downloads, streaming, music metadata and images and recommendations
• - Partner program allows anyone to feature music on their site, blog or profile and earn money from MP3 sales.

London, 16th September 08 – 7digital, the leading digital media delivery company and home of MP3, today announces the launch of a new partner programme and application programming interface (API). The new services will open the highly successful 7digital.com platform and allow third-party developers to create their own tailored download and streaming services and for partners to earn commission from the tracks and albums they sell.

The API platform is designed to be accessible to anyone, from multinational retailers to bedroom developers and will allow a wide-range of music applications and services to be built. 7digital pay out commissions are paid on any sales derived from these applications and services.

The Partner program is designed for non-developers to feature music of their choice on their site, blog or profile simply by copying and pasting code snippets – virtually no technical skill is needed. The program uses similar technology to the highly successful Google AdSense program.

By opening up the 7digital platform via API, developers can select and take data from 7digital.com, including artist, track and album information, and use it, for example, to create a download store for their website. To get started users simply sign up for the service at www.7digital.com/api. A unique API key will be issued, which can be used to sign-in to 7digital’s RESTful web services and retrieve the required data.

The 7digital partner programme (www.7digital.com/partners) will work in a similar vein, but provides non-developers with widgets featuring data provided by the API. Based on the information selected by the user, these widgets will be created that can be embedded into an existing website. These widgets will act as players for the music selected and provide a link for fans to purchase the music on 7digital.com.

Users of the new programmes will benefit from 7digital’s catalogue being entirely MP3 and therefore free of DRM. The MP3 format represents the best quality downloads universally compatible with any music enabled device, including iPods, iPhones, MP3 players and mobile devices.

Ben Drury, CEO of 7digital said, “With these new programmes we’re aiming to open the 7digital platform to the online community and encourage people to build their own music services. With the new API offering, anyone can pull data from our systems and use it as a backbone for their own download store or music. We have some ideas as to how it might be used but I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible.

“The partner program provides access to the same data with the added benefit of pre-defined widgets that can be embedded into an existing website. This is ideal for those non-developers keen to get music onto their site, blog or profile.”