Duncan Freeman of Indie Music Tech uncovered an interesting startup over the weekend.  Smirp, in spite of its long-winded and confusing ‘how it works’ page, is a remarkably simple and practical service, allowing artists and music promoters to sell their MP3s at a customer-determined price point directly via email.  The set-up is brilliant: use your existing Google, Yahoo or other OpenID username and password to log in instantly, link your account to your Amazon account, upload your content to your Smirp ‘name-your-own-price’ page (example), and promote this page by embedding Smirp buttons on your website or social network profiles.  Your customers will click, enter their email, name their own price (or select the minimum price you establish) and receive a link to download your MP3s via email with a 12 hour lifetime [for security reasons].  At face value, it’s similar to Twitpay, the Twitter-dedicated payment solution.

Smirp’s two-tier pricing is more than fair: $6/month for unlimited use or Free in exchange for 20% of your proceeds.  On concept, inspired by Radiohead’s In Rainbows campaign, and ease-of-use alone, this is one of the hottest digital music distribution solutions I have come across.  Perhaps an alliance with CreateSpace, Amazon’s flexible print-per-order CD distribution service will position Smirp alongside the current indie titans, namely ReverbNation, CD Baby and TuneCore?

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