If the price of downloadable music is marching inexorably toward zero, as many people contend, SpiralFrog Inc. expects to lead the brigade.

The New York company, which launched an ad-supported service offering free downloadable songs in September 2007, expects to entertain 6 million unique visitors this month.

SpiralFrog serves younger listeners with more time than money on their hands, says founder and chairman Joe Mohen. He concedes that the service isn't perfect yet.

"Just over 50% of our user searches are satisfied," he says, adding that SpiralFrog includes songs from Universal Music Group and EMI Group plc but is still negotiating with the other two major music labels, Warner Music Group Corp. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. SpiralFrog also continues to add independent labels and has arrangements in place with digital distributors and music-publishing houses.

SpiralFrog keeps about a third of the advertising revenue it generates and shares the rest with content owners and publishers, Mohen says, while declining to disclose the company's sales. He adds that CPMs -- or "cost per thousand impressions," a standard way of pricing online advertising -- run as high as $30 for top-brand display ads.

Initially funded by its founders, SpiralFrog has raised more than $30 million in private capital, primarily from hedge funds including Moore Capital Management Inc. of New York and Stagg Capital Group LLC of Greenwich, Conn. Mohen says venture capital firms shied away from SpiralFrog due to doubts that major labels would ever participate. Although the company is exploring a future round that could include strategic investors, it has never given equity to record labels.

Mohen says SpiralFrog has no plans to sell digital rights management-free music on the site, although it does provide referrals to online MP3 stores.

The company hasn't experimented with DRM-free models, although he expects that most older consumers will opt primarily for DRM-free MP3s, while younger consumers will happily watch ads in exchange for free music.

"They'll save their money for beer and not content," he says. -- Paul Bonanos

Carl Icahn, biggest of the big swinging activist investors, finally switched on his new blog last month. Alas, his initial posts for TheIcahnReport center not on his loathing for Yahoo! Inc., but on the more abstruse fear of crummy corporate governance. The fear and loathing are related, of course. But so far Icahn, who is waging a proxy fight against the Sunnyvale, Calif., company, has resisted the urge to use his soapbox to vivisect Jerry Yang -- at least until the investor liquidates his holdings in Yahoo!.

That's a shame, so here's a call to let Icahn let it all hang out. To wit:

Yahoodlums smashes innocent SHers! Posted on June 19, 2008 - 2:37 p.m.

Testing, testing. We live? Hi everyone, Carl here. Let me begin by saying what a pleasure it is to be here. But let me tell ya, that Jerry Yang. He made a killing in the stock market on this Microsoft business -- he shot his broker. Yeah, I wish that nudnik would learn a trade so I'd know what kind of work he's gonna be out of. Why, all this schnook does is keep running his mouth -- if he keeps talking, maybe he'll say something intelligent.

That's it from me, folks. I'm here every day. Try the prime rib. -- Carl Icahn

Come to think of it, perhaps the brevity of Twitter, the popular "microblogging" service, might be a better medium for Icahn. Unlike a blog post, which encourages endless prattling, a good Tweet is like a stiff jab to the chops, which sounds perfect for Icahn:

Carlwillproxyu: At Lugar's. YHOO shares in terlet. Putz city.

Who needs a 13D when you can tear some exec a new one in 140 characters or less? Don't let us down, Carl. -- A.S.