The British version of Microsoft's search engine recently launched "MSN Unsigned", a service to promote emerging bands and give musicians a wider audience for their tracks. Unsigned is similar in its format to what several other Internet companies have been offering so far, but should get a significant boost from the over 400 million Live Search users spread around the world.

Companies that are already offering similar promotion services include Sonic Bids, CDBaby, Our Stage and the British SliceThePie.com.

The latter in particular has attracted quite a lot of attention from British media in recent times thanks to its very peculiar format. Bands are allowed to participate for free after an initial screening process and are grouped by categories, each containing about a thousand contestants. Users can then listen to some of the songs for each category, rate and comment them, and receive a small sum of money for each review, the exact amount depending on the consistency of their own ratings.

The website name, "Slice the pie", originates from yet another website feature: users who recommend at least one out of the fifteen bands that will eventually get selected for each category will receive a free copy of the group's album as well as a small stake in the band earnings for the following two years. The company also finances the selected bands' expenses for the production of their first album, in exchange for a quota on the earnings generated by the album for the following two years.

When looking at MSN Unsigned under this perspective, we understand that Microsoft's idea is unfortunately not new and doesn't bring any new features or functionality to its users. CNET's Matt Rosoff

joked on the subject:

"Covering Microsoft for the last eight years, I've seen this pattern time and time again. Internet trend comes along. Microsoft watches. Trend picks up steam. Microsoft watches. Some other company--usually a start-up--creates a site that perfectly crystallizes the trend and achieves a surprising spike in traffic. Microsoft creates a product team somewhere in the bowels of its online organization to come up with an answer. Six to eighteen months later, the imitation launches to general yawns in the press and perhaps some temporary spikes in traffic thanks to Microsoft's massive online reach."

The new site can be found here (or from Music > Unsigned from the MSN homepage) and announces monthly updates with new featured bands and the staff's own band promotion tips. Artists can upload their own videos via Soapbox and have them submitted to the MSN staff for evaluation: the best ones will be featured on the site homepage and are likely to get a great exposure.

However, the site doesn't seem to allow for much artist-user interaction, nor does it allow musicians to upload raw audio files to share with the community, like other websites do: unfortunately this means that, in order to apply, the unsigned band must have already invested money in the production of a (semi-)professional music video.

Tips featured on the front page include articles and even videos from producers, and are maybe the most unique feature to the platform. As for the rest, the limited involvement and interaction — simply ratings and comments, similar to YouTube's videos — might well be Unsigned's weakest point, especially when compared to platforms such as OurStage or SliceThePie.

Still, the over 400 million Live ID owners certainly represent a very wide potential audience for just any music star, and will hopefully give the selected artists a chance to receive some free advertisement and see an increased attention from specialized media around the world.