This summer, The Times reported that each teenager in the UK had an average of 800 illegally downloaded music tracks on their MP3 player. This says two things. The first is that the young love their music, and the second is that if we (and by 'we', read first 'humans', and then specifically, the 'UK') want to continue to create professionally produced music - in terms of nice sounding production values - then the artists who make it need to continue to get paid. While government and the major labels favour punishmenttehniques, others call for a rethink.

"Kerchoonz is built for musicians by musicians, to serve the public. It's free, and the artists and the licensers of the music get paid." These are the words of Indianna Gregg, co-founder of Kerchoonz.com. While sites such as last.fm have become hugely successful promoting the work of musicians (some who post their own work for exposure, others who have it posted by others against their own will), the income they generate is minor - only when the listener decides to pay to download the MP3 after streaming the track do they make any money. With illegal downloads elsewhere on the web, the income is obviously zilch.

Artists on Kerchoonz set up a profile, and pay an admin fee of £12.50. Every time a song of theirs is streamed, they get 0.5p. Each time a song is downloaded, they receive 10p. As an incentive to listeners, they too are paid for referring the band in question to friends onKerchoonz who decide to buy the music. "As soon as a band gets £12.50 in revenue, £2.50 is transferred to your referral account", says Gregg, who feels strongly that artists need to make a livable income, after suffering herself after releasing her own album: "We (Gregg and husband-produce/Kerchoonz co-founder Ian Morrow) had VC funding and major sales, but when we went to work out why we weren't doing so well we a found there'd been 1/4m downloads from torrent sites. The thing is that they don't hurt the major labels, they hurt the 400 indy labels in the UK."

The site went into beta phase at the end of October, after receiving start-up funding from the Discovery Investment Fund in Dundee and the Scottish Co-Investment Fund. At the moment, the revenue comes from advertising, but major labels will soon be on board, according to Gregg, and to download the tracks of those artists, users will have to pay. Whether users will come to the site to listen to free music of new acts and then pay for musicians who are freely (really very 'freely') available elsewhere, is the big question. But the fact that the site is so unique in providing a space for listeners who want artists to get paid as much as they want to get music for free, might mean it becomes incredibly popular due to the goodwill of the public (Kerchoonz currently claims users stay for a massive 29 page views each)- which should be a plus for advertisers.

It's clear that if artists hope to make a living from their work-(work which, at least where the UK is concerned, means a lot in terms of exports), something will have to be done. Without it, the whole prospect of a life in music will be less appealing, and we'll all suffer. The idea of punishing ISPs for their customers' behaviour is gaining pace, but, surprise surprise, policymakers are looking out of touch. With such a huge issue, perhaps sites like Kerchoonz.com, where a majority of content remains largely 'free', while still managing to make some cash for the artists, provide the answer. Let's just hope they manage to make enough for themselves to remain operable.

“We’re a social software application that enables like-minded people to meet through their media and links.” We’ve said if before on these pages, but there are a lot of social networks out there; certainly too many for all of them to be successful. Yet FileRide is different, says co-founder Patrik Hedmalm: “Most social-networks focus on friends that you already know, along the lines of pushing updates and links to those friends. We focus on finding friends in a totally new way – through media, and not just through people.”

So, while social-networks lead people to socialise online, Hedmalm is probably quite right that for the most part, that socialising is done with people that you're already acquanited with. FileRide requires an application to be installed on your PC (Mac and Linux to follow in coming months), before you drag in the files you want to work around. “When you drag something into the FileRide app, we scan it generating a unique key, without giving away the contents. For a song, for example, we generate an acoustic fingerprint so it doesn’t matter what the file type or encoding is.” So, drag in some Sex Pistols MP3s, your full (and of course legally downloaded) series of The Apprentice, and your web browser’s bookmarks linking you to cmypitch.com’s Info Centre, then whatever else, and like-minded folk from around the world will be able to see what gets you going. The next move is yours.

Although only in beta stage for the last month, the four Stockholm-based developers and designers are already squarely focused on the next stage of funding. “We’ve been bootstrapping between us, but we’re looking for funding from discussions with VCs in Sweden”, says Hedmalm.

As for revenue, affiliate links to places such as Amazon are important, but Hedmalm sees other areas as key “We’ve recently launched contextual and highly targeted advertising”, he says. To keep the service free, that targeted advertising will need to come off. But by offering a unique alternative to the swarms of social networks that don’t make it really easy to meet new people, for whatever purpose, and by having a unique way of doing so, the coming year might just be a good one for FileRide.

“We’re a personalised publishing platform that aggregates large quantities of information, with different content for different users.” Andrew Davies is confident that this approach to online publishing is the way forward, and the way things are going, they may be judging the zeitgeist – a push for more personalisation – quite accurately.

Idiomag is an online music magazine that only presents you with articles on musicians and bands that you like to listen to. “We syndicate from 450 content partners, from Rolling Stone and Billboard to niche music mags”, says Davies, who launched the closed-Beta version of the site with Ed Barrow in November 2006. Come April 2007, a full version was launched, in time for the all-important facebook application a month later. “Ed was frustrated going in to WH Smith buying 6 or 7 magazines and then reading 10-15% of each one”, says Davies. The solution? Aggregation and personalisation. “We’re giving a personalised blend so people come back to the site.”

But as aggregators become more prevalent in the world of online publishing, critics argue that the value of the actual content delivered suffers. Davies is sure that the quality of the publications which Idiomag’s RSS feeds emanate from means this tag doesn’t apply to Idiomag: “We’re not a pile-it-high sell-it-cheap company”, he says. “We see high engagement rates with the content we have.” This is key for one of the main revenue sources, advertising. On some ads on the site, he says, there are ten times the industry average for click-through rates, which Davies puts down to trust. While traditional publishing costs (such as writers - “the price of content is being driven down dramatically”, Davies points out) virtually non-existent, and other sources of incomes based on itunes, tickets and merchandising, there are plans for expansion. Davies says there are plans to ‘get into bed’ with some big B2B publishers, as well the creation of a new personalised fashion mag once the musical side of things have been learnt from. “We’ll be adding film, gaming, gossip...from different sites aggregating feeds.” In addition, Idiomag launches the beta version of the mobile phone application.

Revenue generation appears more than likely, while relevant experience is also at hand: Davies co-founded web development company thruSITES, while Barrow’s father had been CEO of a company dealing with content rights management with an eye for social media, and handily for the founders, was willing to invest £150,000 in seed funding.

The growth in online video seems to know no bounds. It’s becoming increasingly clear how useful it can be as a tool (or is that unclear?), and one idea exploiting this new tool is Virtual Presenter, an offshoot of Corby’s Run Visual.

Founder Steve Smith has a background in video production, and saw the chance for a living, breathing TV-style presenter to guide internet users through a client’s homepage: “We were putting stuff on the web 4 or 5 years ago, but broadband was so poor at the time. It wasn’t a good user experience, but that all changed around 2 years ago.” With more broadband connectivity, better video-compression techniques, and a local EMDA grant, the gap in the market presented itself.

Launched as Run Media in 1999, the company switched to Run Visual in 2003, working on a range of products and services from marketing and communications, to print or web content production. But Virtual Presenter might just be their killer idea. “Rather than adding just text and photos someone can help add a unique selling point, adding value to the website”, says Smith. “We can’t help people get to your site, but it’s what you actually do with people once they’re on it. If you can say something in the first 10 or 15 seconds then you’re halfway there...It’s a call to action.”

And the selection process is simple. As Smith says “You just go to the website, and choose a presenter. They’re all pros who can work quickly, and you just pick one that suites the project your trying to offer.” Clients don’t have to sit in on the production, so it’s mostly it’s independent of the geography. And with some early feedback showing the simple addition of a pretty face can triple response rates on click-through parts of the site, the concept could get traction very quickly.

Gig Junkie is the first brand in a portfolio of social networks from the MOO Group. As co-founder Marc Bridgen told cmypitch, there are a lot of social networks out there, but no one’s quite figured out the perfect monetisation strategy.

Gig Junkie is getting off to a good start – targeting a gap which desperately needs to be filled; live music. As music fans in the UK now, there’s still no definitive place to go in order to find inspiration for gigs, free or otherwise. You’re stuck with mainstream sites profiling the O2 Centre, made to head to genre-specific forums, or left trawling individual clubs’ pages.

“Gig Junkie is a live music network we’re working on making the most definitive place to check for gigs...We want to have everything from one man and his dog to the Foo Fighters at Wembley” And to get a definitive list of events those smaller artists will be playing at, Gig Junkie will be trawling myspace for gig listings – currently the number one spot for emerging artists. But importantly, the company is also utilising fans, promoters and musicians themselves, who are all slowly creating a musical social network.

Brothers Bridgen are not exactly newcomers to starting a business: They had both been involved very early on with document-management firm Randall Lyons, and exited after it was sold to Capita in 2005. They used some of their proceeds to launch MOO and Gig Junkie, and are now at the VC-funding stage. When I spoke to Marc, they’d just had their first meeting.

“There are so many free gigs out there but currently no way of promoting that”, says Bridgen, who quit his latest job with his co-founders last summer. But while a place to find those free gigs will be one driver, income is key. The primary source of revenue will be tickets. Currently, 25p per ticket sold using Ticketmaster comes in, which goes up to 40% when a certain volume is hit. On top of that, the affiliate model is being utilised to sell albums, while new models such as premium-rate SMS competitions, charged-for SMS reminders for when concert tickets go on sale, and a text-a-photo-from-the-gig-to-your-profile service are all being implemented.

Launched in beta version with the founding trios savings, “Mixcloud is a platform for user-generated radio, whereas users of other radio sites don’t have the potential to upload their own content”, says co-founder Nico Perez. The Alpha version launches this month, and the hunt for VC funding gears up.

The founders have backgrounds in engineering, graphics/web design and maths, but are unsurprisingly united by a love for music. As Perez says “We’re all big music fans, and had a radio show of our own at university. So the needs we’re solving are frustrations we know ourselves.”

Whereas traditional radio, including ‘traditional’ web radio, lets a small number of DJs play their music to an audience, new concepts such as Last.fm let ‘the wisdom of crowds’ theory suggest new music to users, using tags to throw new tunes in the direction of listeners. But Mixcloud replaces it with the more traditional ‘wisdom of the expert.’ “There are already enthusiasts out there but they’re not being found. It’s a platform for those content creators.” In other words, you just tune into the person or DJ who’s right for you, and let them inform your tastes. And the key-ingredient of always providing a track listing means it's catching on fast, according to Perez: “There are 500 DJs already signed up to our mailing lists!’

“It’s based on that tried and tested radio method, advertising. But we have less expenditure”, Perez pointed out to me. On top of the 15-30 second adverts before each half hour show, revenue is expected via affiliate sales, possible brand sponsorship, and the freemium option. If the wisdom of crowds succumbs to the wisdom of experts, the older industry buzzphrase of ‘user-generated-content’ could be around for a lot longer – and Mixcloud might well be there.

In the world of digital media where new tools and applications are popping up left, right and centre, someone has to be making these new agenda-changing products. One young firm describing itself as a ‘cultural construction company’ is Harmonypark. Or as co-founder Andrew McPhee says “We were started to create socially useful applications and experiences.” As well as creating products for the likes ofeBay, Harmonypark is currently busy working on 3 new i-Phone applications, following the market to where demand is. In addition, they're enjoying the buzz around recent expense sharing tool Expensure.

But while designing ‘apps’ is a key, product and service incubation for others is also a huge part of what the company’s about, and the balance fluctuates “ It changes month to month: We try do something like 50/50, but it switches to 80/20 and to 20/80.”

Kiwis McPhee and Ebony Charlton, as well as Canadian Mike Evans, began to boot-strap with the company in 2005. They all had experience in starting their own companies beforehand, taking in digital agencies and E-Commerce ‘in Australasia’. “We’ve all worked in advertising, but this is creating useful applications in digital culture: we solve problems”, says McPhee. “Between us we all had the complementary skills: When you start you find out there are things you aren’t good at: we threw them all together.”

The company has developed well, being responsible for incubating successes such as video-player Vzaar. This whole process has taught the team the importance of taking equity in the fruit of their labour: “More often now we’re taking a stake as well as payment. It’s been an eye opener. Some products have gone on to be worth millions... and we didn’t take equity”, says McPhee matter-of-factly. But with a string of useful apps under Harmonypark’s belt, it looks like the opportunity to do so will continue to present itself.

Yerzies is a US brand which has come to our attention due to the growing trend for personalization and bespoke products. Launched this year, it’s a lot more than an online clothes store. In the words of founder Scott Killian, “It’s a place to create, share your ideas and profit from your creations. We give users the power to create their own products using our advanced configurator... When they're done, they can buy as little as one piece or sell their creations to other users and keep the profits.”

And that’s where Yerzies takes the ‘make your own’ T-shirt idea and drives it forward; it’s about users being able to monetize their own creativity, while sharing ideas with those around them on the site. Killian is adamant that this method engages people far more than simply having an ‘E-shop’ set-up: “We want to make Yerzies a platform that encourages the creation and consumption of user-generated content so we're continuing to develop a robust set of tools that our users can leverage to profit from the sale of their work. This includes social networking tools like our blog forum and user profiles attached to products they've created, but it also includes sales and marketing tools like widgets for promoting your work on other sites, robust sales reporting, etc... We'll be announcing some interesting twists to this in the near future that will leverage the idea of ‘community’ far more than what's already there.”

Launched this year, Yerzies has the software and advisory business DemandMade as its parent-company. DemandMade, which has customization as a core-focus, was in turn launched in 2005 after Killian and co-founder Tim Brule’s sale of FanBuzz - the platform for online stories which ranged from broadcaster ESPN to the 2002 Winter Olympics. In Killian’s mind, this venture was crucial: “We quickly realized we had stumbled onto something that was even more valuable to our customers. When we offered them to opportunity interact with merchandise, mix and match attributes and even personalize the final product, it became an instant hit.”

Both DemandMade and Yerzies were self-funded by the founders, who also raised about $10 million in private equity for FanBuzz, before the exit to a well-known US shopping channel.

London is awash with ‘creative’ agencies working across the board from music to film. What’s different about this West London start-up is that they’re representing artists in film making and TV production, publishing books, and having an attached illustration agency to boot.

Studio Rarekwai, or The SRK, was founded by the creative duo of Suridh Hassan and Ryo Sanada in November 2006, starting out in film production but rapidly expanding to include the illustration and publishing sides of the business. Hassan says things began with the duo wanting to push their own work, but soon grew to take in the work of others. “It’s been projects that have morphed and evolved: We started off making documentaries, then started making books, then started to represent artists, and now we’re working on making that one 'package' that we can offer out to clients and brands, and deal with tailor-made briefs.”

In the two years since launch, they’ve already expanded internationally. “We have a TV programme in Japan and our books are international, so we get a lot of interest from abroad - in fact at times more so than the UK.” Making a name for themselves via documentary on the Japanese hip hop scene, a recent street-art sticker-book has also been doing well, with a full page feature in The Metro newspaper . More recently, the world’s first documentary on the musical phenomenon that is dubstep (directed by Hassan) made its debut this October. All of this on an absolute bootstrapping budget – but as Hassan says “If you can work yourself into a position to do just what you like doing - why not?” Full marks for entrepreneurial spirit.

"It's one thing being able to read about something, but another to see video, which is far more engaging." So says Ed Baker, who this September launched Wordia, an online dictionary with a twist: not only do users submit the definitions of words themselves, but they do it in video form, ranking and commenting on each other's definitions. These sit neatly above more 'traditional' text definitions from HarperCollins.

Baker's co-founder is Michael Birch, the man behind social-network Bebo, which sold to AOL for $850m in March of this year. On September 18th, Wordia was launched at the home of Dr Samuel Johnson (on the anniversary of the doc’s birthday); the man responsible for what was arguably English’s first dictionary, in 1755.

Like many web start-ups "It came from the need", says Baker. Constantly writing treatments in his former life as television development producer, Baker realised that his vocabulary was lacking. He'd signed up to numerous 'word of the day' E-mails from online dictionary sites, but would never get round to reading them. "I wasn't getting them in context", he says. "It rarely jumped out at me." His time as a development producer has also assisted him: "The clearest crossover is that start-ups are about coming up with an idea where there's a gap in the market, and trying to get funding for it – the same as if it was seed funding."

Baker ended up shooting some 'pilot' material with comedian mate Danny Robbins, and the light -hearted approach given to the definitions made him feel he was on to a winner. "It's all about communication of the idea", he says. He also enlisted the help of his former flatmate who was, conveniently, also a developer, and repaid the favour by decorating said friend's new house.

But the launch required funding. Baker sold his house, secured some money from the DTI, and then acquired the financial assistance of Birch for an undisclosed sum. "I partnered with the best person possible - he's what I'd call a super-angel. He's been there and done it, and done it extremely well." Seeing Birch speak at an event in May this year, Baker joined the queue of twenty other fans and hopefuls who'd wanted to bash his ear after the speech. But he opted to chat with Birch's wife (and Bebo co founder) Xochi Birch, who was surrounded by a considerably smaller throng. Xochi introduced Michael to Ed, and the very next day the pair were in a bar discussing Wordia. Baker flew back to London, but soon returned to Silicon Valley to secure Birch's funding, keeping it quiet from the developers and colleagues he had working on the project in case the connection fell through."I told everyone I was off to Skye with my girlfriend!"

Revenue-wise, there is talk of brands getting involved to buy-in to certain words and terms they feel are well-associated with them. Whether this will develop, or leave a funny taste in users’ mouths, time will tell. But in the meantime, Baker feels the site is strong enough to be a purely ad-funded business - which, incidentally, won't be including pre-roll ads; "I still fnd pre-rolls quite intrusive, and it's difficult with user-generated content...the creator may end up feeling cheated."

Unsurprisingly, there has been some negative reaction to Wordia's 'democratic' approach to definition. While Baker has ensured the text definitions are contained in results, some journalists have been quick to point out the lack of etymological definitions, as well as potentially 'incorrect' definitions. He says etymology will soon make an appearance, and as regards 'true' definitions, some people will never get it: "It's not redefining the dictionary definition, it's just saying what it means to users, and it’s a way into a subject or debate...We're working with the Natural Literacy Trust and they love it. It engages users who wouldn't usually bother with dictionaries."