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"Editor's Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.\nSTARTUP DETAILS:\nCompany Name: AudioMicro\n20-word Description: AudioMicro is the\u00A0preeminent user generated micro stock music and sound effects\u00A0licensing platform.\nCEO's Pitch: AudioMicro's proven business model, micro stock, makes its platform innovative and revolutionary in a music industry traditionally unwelcoming of new licensing and monetization models.\u00A0Micro stock is a business model rooted in the photography industry whereby content is crowd sourced and\u00A0democratically licensed for prices starting a $1. The largest micro stock photography licensor, iStockphoto.com, will experience approximately $122 million in FY 2008 revenues. AudioMicro is the iStockphoto of the audio world, operating in the $3.4 billion commercial music (performance and sync) licensing market, representing world class composers and sound designers.\n\nMashable's Take: Launched earlier this year, AudioMicro, a Los Angeles-based stock music licensing service, is aiming to capture a part of the commercial music market at the same time that iStockphoto has joined the fray. It may be right to assume that an earlier entry into the market would have bade better for its future. The field is now populated by the likes of independent operations such as YouLicense and even Getty Images, a global image-heavy juggernaut that acquired Pump Audio more than a year ago.\nNow that major brands have involved themselves in the relatively young, Web-based audio licensing market, AudioMicro must rely almost exclusively on its content and cost structure in order to grab a healthy percentage of the market. Looking at its catalog of material, which the startup lists as user-generated, it seems to be working with a decent supply of material. As with most archives filled with music and sound effects and so forth, some content will interest few users, but there\u2019s enough quality there to warrant an account. Fees are easy to understand, too. One minute or less will run you $1. The same ratio is had for anything up to 4 minutes in length. Push past that mark, and you\u2019ll pay $5.\n\nAs for the service\u2019s layout, it\u2019s simple enough that you more or less find your own way around without trouble. It would certainly do well to rearrange its front page to make it seem a bit more current. Perhaps more featured media and less tags would grab the eye of the visitor a bit more. But on the whole, it serves its purpose. If you don\u2019t find what you\u2019re looking for elsewhere, or if you would simply like a basic place to shop for stock downloads (or offer your own for sale), without having to contend with mountains of users pooling into higher-profile venues, AudioMicro is a good bet. The company's stated commissions for submitters of music and effects is 60% for exclusives (uploaded to AudioMicro only) and 50% for non-exclusives.\nSponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/07/24/audiomicro/>