I've been having a look at a few of these and while it's a little bit buggy (only minor little glitches - not showstopping errors) and the payment rates (after the mobile operators' cut is taken) are quite low, I thought it might be worth flagging up here.
In a nutshell, the Artists First solution allows bands/artists to setup their own digital download shop, accepting SMS mobile payments, PAYPAL and credit/debit cards (via paypal) and selling downloads including: MP3, video, images, files, TRUETONES (aka REALTONES).
It's quite well put together, especially the TRUETONE RINGTONE sales bit, but, the main drawback is the revenue share between the Artist/band - Artist First and the mobile operator. For a £1.50 ringtone(truetones only) sale, here's the splits depending on operator:
operator sale price/artist revenue
Vodafone £1.50/£0.70
Orange £1.50/£0.69
O2 £1.50/£0.71
T Mobile £1.50/£0.68
Virgin £1.50/£0.42
http://www.artists-first.net [open in a new window]
I've nothing to do with Artists First. Was just trying out their solution. They have a free 3-day trial to suck it and see for yourself and the setup price ranges from $19 for a basic account to $30 for a label account.
I'm not sure if I'm going to run with them - their revenue share deals look very very bad for artists. However, I'm toying with the idea of using it only as a "pay by mobile" option for a Drupal driven music shop. Setting up a premium SMS payment system (where users can pay for something using a mobile phone) is very expensive. So there is value in that alone.
Also, the workflow, for lack of a better word..or the way orders are handled and presented is quite good. It's intuitive and probably a good "template" to use for a drupal digital shop - which is what I'm working on at the mo.
hope that's of interest to others.
Dub