Archive for: mobile

Napster Music Download Store Launches Their New Mobile Access Website

Napster, the pioneer of digital music, today announced subscribers can now access their account at m.napster.com from most web-enabled phones, regardless of carrier. Subscribers can now browse, search, preview and use account credits to download tracks “over the air” from Napster’s library of more than nine million songs.

Napster customers currently receive five MP3s and unlimited listening on the PC for $5 per month. Beginning today, they can redeem credits and download tracks “over the air,” as well as receive a back-up MP3 copy for their PC – at no additional cost. Consumers can also create a new account or add credits to an existing account directly from their phone using a Napster prepaid card.

“Napster subscribers can now discover and download music at anytime on more phones from just about any carrier,” said Brad Duea, Napster president. “This is one of the strongest steps we’ve made to date toward our goal of making Napster and music accessible anytime, anywhere.”

To promote the debut of m.napster.com, and celebrate September as “Music Month,” Best Buy will offer $15 worth of Napster music (15 songs to keep and three months of unlimited listening on the PC) at no charge with the purchase of any contract mobile phone.

“Mobile phones are becoming the focal point for how people connect with their world, and music is a big piece of that,” said Jude Buckley, chief marketing and merchant officer for Best Buy Mobile. “Our customers want to be able to download and listen to music no matter where they are, and now Napster makes it accessible and simple to get music on any type of mobile phone.”

Today’s debut of m.napster.com is the first of many initiatives coming from Napster in the near future that exemplify the company’s strategy of making music instantly available from everywhere one might be.

Spotify Sends In iPhone Application for Apple to Review

Previously here on RouteNote we wrote about how one of our newest partners Spotify is launching very soon in the US market. However, today Spotify has new news, they have sent in their iPhone application for Apple to review. It is not guaranteed that the application will be accepted into the iTunes App store, mainly because it seems as those Spotify is a direct competitor to iTunes and their application may slow music sales in the iTunes store. Anyways, here is a preview of the new application.

GroupieTunes: Mobile Music Store Goes Offline

We have noticed that one of the worlds leading mobile stores has shut down their service for a limited time. GroupieTunes has shut down their website so they can revamp it and then relaunch. I find this a little weird as because in the meantime while the new site is being developed the company is makingno revenues. It seems like they are just wasting their traffic and hurting their SEO and customers.

It would be great to hear your thoughts on GroupieTunes and their previous service.

China Mobile Has Over 80 Million Subscribers

China Mobile is one of the leading telecommunications companies within China, and they have released figures on Wednesday that stated they have more than 80 million subscribers to the M.Music Wireless Music Club. M.Music involves all four major labels and includes downloads, music videos, artist photos, ringtones, and even SMS-based magazines.  The service was launched in July of 2006.

The subscribers have doubled since September 2007, but this 80 million is only a small part of the 421.7 million subscribers that have across their entire network. Despite its heft, China Mobile faces serious competition from companies like China Telecom and China Unicom.  Among its future initiatives, China Mobile is now spreading a homegrown 3G connectivity protocol, one that aims to supercharge multimedia delivery and communications. 

China is an emerging market, not just economically but in a variety of markets. It would be great if we could some how take our musicians music to that side of the world, because the sheer size of the market is unrivalled.