O2 X Awards to celebrate music industry innovation.

As part of a series of features following O2's partnership with Music Week to promote the O2 X Awards, a national celebration of the best small and innovative music businesses, we profile We7, a company with the potential to pick up #10,000 in prize money

The idea of an advertising-supported free music download service may not be unique, but while US outfits such as SpiralFrog and Q-Trax have focused their energies on sensational yet flawed launches, UK-based We7 has been quietly building a credible platform since its beta launch in May 2007.

Now counting Sony BMG among its partners, we7.com offers DRM-free files alongside adverts that are tailored to each user's demographic, tastes and location, the idea being that the adverts are as unobtrusive as possible.

The revenue generated from advertising feeds back to the artists, labels and other rights owners, meaning that a consumer base used to acquiring music for free can continue to do so, but legally, while the artists actually get paid.

As well as offering its users the ability to stream and download music for free with an ad, We7 is also presenting them with the opportunity to pay for download tracks without an ad, with the files being in DRM- free MP3 format.

We7 launched a beta service back in May 2007 with just 30 tracks available to users, but has since seen more than 3m downloads, has in excess of 100,000 subscribers and has secured licenses for music from a number of artists, record labels and distributors.

By using Mediagraft, a unique technology devised by We7 co-founder and chief technology officer Gareth Reakes, the We7 platform enables each downloaded track to be tagged with an audio advertisement of not more than 10 seconds in length.