Gerd Leonhard is something of a whirlwind in the digital music industry - as a commentator and consultant he is regularly in demand by technology companies and record labels to advise on the latest trends and future direction of the digital music industry. Leonhard is also the co-author of the best selling book 'The Future of Music' and is a fixture at conferences and trade events and directly involved in the industry as the CEO of www.Licensemusic.com. Now with his latest venture, Sonific, Gerd has chosen to put his knowledge and experience into practice with a compelling new online music service Sonific.

Sonific is based on a fairly simple premise: to allows Web users to make music available directly from their own personal Web sites. At the heart of Sonific are 'SongSpots' - embedded Flash objects that can be inserted into any Web page users can then click on the graphic which will stream the track directly. The simplicity of Sonific seems to be its big selling point, and with a ready market of bloggers and community sites out there, it would seem that it has the potential to be taken up quickly. Click on the Songspot below to test out Sonific and listen to Leonhard's favorite track at the moment 'Wish I Could Sample' by Brahm.

At the moment the site is in Beta testing and registrations are only available on request, so you may have to wait a little while until you can Sonify your own site - but in the meantime we spoke to Leonhard about his plans and where he sees Sonific in the the future of music.

Can you tell me about the inspiration for Sonific?

GL: Sonific grew out of the realization that the web is finally 'going multimedia' very quickly. We talked about this during the .com bubble, a lot, but we were just 5-7 years too early. The rise of Web video and the "TV-ness' of sites like Myspace means that almost all people will want to use music on their sites within the next 12-18 months, and Sonific is going to be a leader in the turf of syndicating music this way. What we are creating is a new network of music that has very unique benefits for the users, the visitors, and the content owners - and it creates a very powerful system of viral, user-driven, niche / long-tail opportunities.

I'm interested in how you are planning on making a return from Sonific, while the functionality of the service is clear, what are your plans in terms of making money?

GL: Can't say too much about that right now, but we will make some announcements shortly. Basically, we plan to make $$ from commissions of music purchases effected through Sonific (CDs, downloads, ringtones etc), 'smart' advertising on the gateway-pages (i.e. the pages you get to after you click on the Songspots), some paid search and paid placements, and a few other 'secret sauce' revenue streams.

What are the plans for expansion of the repertoire? At the moment it appears fairly limited, what labels have come on board at the present time?

GL: Right now we have approx. 35,000 artists on Sonific; our main partner is CDBaby. We have about 30 record labels coming on within the next 2 weeks, with tens of thousands of new tracks, and some more well-known artists as well. We will be making a separate announcement on the names of the content providers but it will include the leading indie label Cooking Vinyl, and it's digital division, UploaderMusic. We have received hundreds of mails from record labels from all over the world (small and large ones) that are interested in offering music through us, so we expect our library to grow very quickly; conversations with the Major Record Labels are well under way, too.

Who do you regard as the key market for Sonific?

GL: It's for people that are into customizing their websites, blogs, photo and video sites, and who are way-into music. Right now, we are looking at a possible audience of approx 150 Million users - bloggers and social networks will definitely lead the rest I think. The response from the blogging community has been fantastic, already - even with the more or less unknown repertoire that we went out with. Myspace has created a unique niche here but may eventually fall short of the need to empower this outside of their own empire: people like to sonify their pages and sites, but they want to do where and how and with what they want, not just with Myspace bands and on Myspace sites.

One way of expanding your catalog could be through a linkup with Creative Commons artists - any plans on that front?

GL: I like Larry's concept and fully support it - we are investigating possibilities, but of course, the concept is already quite similar - artists allow 'free' use of their music in return for another currency: attention.

There are a lot of MP3 Blogs out there that provide tracks for download, do you see this as a key market of importance in the future for labels who want to involve themselves on those sorts of music blogs but aren't willing to allow actual downloads?

GL: Maybe, but what really matters is the context of the music, the relevance -- and that is what we provide. If I, as a blogger, present and endorse a track that can be heard right there on my site (or even auto-start), that's a lot more meaningful than offering a link to a download. It's immediate and it's personal, and it does not involve downloading anything -- ie., in a way, we are sort of a step before the MP3 blogs. However, we have some plans in this direction as well... stay tuned.

How long have you been working on this project?

GL: 18 months since the first days of incubation, and 10 years of messing around in digital music (I was the Founder and CEO of Licensemusic.com from 1996 to 2002).

How long do you expect to be in Beta?

GL: We will open for public beta within the next few weeks, so you won't need an invite any longer. After that - too early too tell, but so far the site is doing really well despite some serious traffic spikes that we already went through.

You're perhaps best known as a commentator and consultant on digital music - does this venture mark a change of strategy for you, and what sort of risks do you think you run by making such a switch?

GL: I really wear 2 hats: the Futurist (mediafuturist.com), author (The Future of Music), Speaker, and the Entrepreneur (for example, as CEO Licensemusic.com), so this is not really a change for me; I like both 'doing' and 'talking about it'. I am also on the advisory board of a few other companies, such as www.yourspins.com (check it out!)

Finally, what's your favorite track on Sonific at the moment?

GL: I am offline right now but it's the BRAHM track featured on the SongSpot homepage --- it's becoming my personal Sonific soundtrack very quickly. In fact, while looking at the Sonific library, I ended up downloading about 100 tracks from EMusic (which I subscribe to) so I guess the idea of selling more music by showing it on Sonific already works.