Mobile music download service launches ahead of Apple iPhone
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British telecoms company Omnifone on Thursday launched MusicStation, a new music download service for mobile phone users in Sweden, beating Apple&#39;s iPhone to the global marketplace by two weeks.
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The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store is a new service for iPod and iPhone users.
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Nokia Corp. unveiled services and cellphones yesterday that customers can use to download music and play games, a bid by the world's largest mobile phone maker to challenge Apple Inc.'s higher-end iPhone, as well as iTunes and the iPod.
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Software giant Microsoft unveils a music-downloading service to rival Apple's iTunes and other providers.
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iTunes, a legal music download service from Apple, previously unavailable in Canada, finally launched its much anticipated Canadian online store yesterday.
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Supermarket giant Tesco is hoping to take a slice of Apple&#39;s pie with the launch of a new music download service. The service will launch as part of Tesco.
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World+dog gangs up on Apple MusicStation, the service that aims to give unlimited mobile access to music worldwide for a small weekly fee, finally went live today.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Even before Apple's much anticipatedÂ iPhone hits the shelves later this month, users of many different kinds of phones can listen to their iTunes music, via a new service from Seattle company Melodeo. Anyone can use the beta version of NuTsie, launched on Tuesday, by signing up and then exporting their iTunes playlists to NuTsie. Users don't actually upload their music files, only the metadata of the files which identifies the songs. After receiving an application via text message to their phones, they can start listening to their playlists. On the backend, Melodeo is assembling a library of music so it can stream the songs to users. When a user chooses to listen to music from their playlist, Melodeo streams it from its own library. The company adheres to "radio rules," the same guidelines that govern how broadcast radio and online stations play music and then pay artists and record companies for the right to play the songs. Because Melodeo follows radio rules, NuTsie has a few quirks. For instance, users can't pick individual songs from their libraries, they can only listen to their playlists. Also, playlists don't play in the order that the user made them -- NuTsie shuffles the order. If a user's playlist includes a full album, Melodeo must insert random songs into its playback in order to comply with the rules. For now, NuTsie supports 15 phones, although the Java application may work on other phones. Melodeo is developing a Brew version and a Windows Mobile client. Most users will want to subscribe to an unlimited data plan from their mobile operator before using the service, otherwise the cost to stream the music could be high. Melodeo is recommending that users have third generation service, even though the stream uses just 24Kbps, in order to get a high quality service, said Dave Dederer, vice president of music content at Melodeo. So far, Melodeo has a library of 500,000 songs, and is adding around 10,000 songs every couple days, he said. That means that some songs users might have from iTunes, which has a library 5 million strong, might not play. The service shouldn't anger Apple and that wasn't Melodeo's intent, Dederer said. "People have invested time and energy into their libraries and we're trying to embrace and extend that universe," he said. "It's an extension of the value you're already getting out of the iTunes universe." There's another plus to the service. "We monetize music that's illegally stored in an iTunes library," said Dederer, who is himself a songwriter, record label owner and member of the band The Presidents of the United States of America. That's because when NuTsie streams a song from a playlist that a user may have illegally downloaded, Melodeo pays the artist and record company for streaming the song. Melodeo hopes to launch NuTsie commercially in six to eight weeks and hopes to also soon launch with a carrier partner that could decide to offer a subscription to the service. The company hasn't yet decided how to charge for the service. It could offer it via a monthly subscription or with a one time fee for downloading the application. Melodeo is also looking into visual and audio advertising so that users could access it for free, Dederer said.
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The company will add content to its PlayNow service, which lets users download music via their mobile phones.
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Preparing itself for the eventual release of Apple's iPhone in the UK, Vodafone on Tuesday unveiled a new music store that allows the unlimited download of tracks to compatible phones.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.K. startup hopes to compete withÂ Apple's new iPhone by offering a flat-rate music service that can run on most of today's mobile phones. Omnifone Ltd. launched on Thursday its MusicStation service that allows mobile phone users to download as many music tracks as they want for â¬2.99 (US$3.97) per week. The company previewed MusicStation in February at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. The Swedish mobile phone subsidiary of Norwegian telco Telenor ASA is the first to offer the MusicStation service. More than 30 operators in Europe, Asia and South Africa have signed up to offer the service. To use MusicStation, users must have handsets preinstalled with the application. "MusicStation runs on any Java and music-enabled device," said Omnifone spokesman Tim Hadley. "We're talking about 75 percent of the phones currently available on the market." The company plans to have more than 100 million MusicStation-enabled handsets within the next 12 months. Omnifone has developed software that allows its application to be ported to the many different types of Java used on mobile phones, according to Hadley. One of the main benefits of MusicStation is quick and easy navigating and downloading -- unlike many of the carrier music portals, based on WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) technology, which can be time-consuming and difficult to browse, according to the spokesman. "The application is very comparable to an MP3 player user experience," he said. Downloads to mobile phones over 3G (third-generation) mobile phone networks can take between 30 seconds and one minute, all of which can happen in the background. The service also runs on GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) networks. Omnifone has signed licensing deal with several large music companies, including EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music International. "We're starting with over 1 million tracks," Hadley said. DRM (digital rights management) technology protects all of the music. The mobile MusicStation service includes several features, such as messaging and the ability to share playlists and tracks. Over the next few months, the company plans to offer a MusicStation desktop application. For an additional â¬1 per month, customers can have all of the tracks downloaded to their mobile phones automatically download to their PCs when they log on to the portal service, according to Hadley. Operators, music companies and Omnifone will split revenue generated by MusicStation. Apple announced this week that iPhone users will need an account for its iTunes Store music service before activating the device. The iPhone debuts in the U.S. on June 29. Â
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Access the cloud of music available in various nooks and crannies of the internet with SeeqPod's new iPhone version of their "playable search" free music service.
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In the days leading up to the availability of Apple Inc.&#39;s iPhone, potentially competitive mobile music services, including one from Gracenote, are hitting the market.
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The online retail giant finally unveils its long-awaited music store. In a double punch to Apple, it's DRM-free--and cheaper.
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Omnifone, a British mobile music company, is unveiling a new music service Monday aimed at cell phone users who crave music while on the go, in the first of what is expected to be many challenges against Apple ...Comment
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The iTunes Music Store now has more than one million songs available for download in the US, the first online digital music service to offer consumers a million-song catalog. [Aug 10]
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Canadians are finally getting a taste of Apple&#39;s iTunes. The legal music download service finally launched in Canada yesterday, bringing with it over 700,000 songs, exclusive tracks, celebrity playlists and multiple CD burning rights.