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Electric Jukebox: the music player for everyone else
"I'm not after the Spotify customer," says Rob Lewis, co-creator of the Electric Jukebox, "I'm after everyone else." He's devoted the last two years of his life to creating a digital music player that's designed not for smartphone-addicted tweens, but folks who otherwise struggle to embrace technology. Now, the streaming music veteran is ready to unveil the product, a device that eschews headphones and complicated subscription packages in favor of just plugging into the TV. After all, nearly every household has a TV that can produce sound, so why not harness that power for tunes?
Rara.com: a new music service for the techno techno technophobe (video)
Music lovin' grampas here and in Europe will be doing The Charleston when they hear about Rara.com, a cloud-based music service with them in mind, which launched today. Powered by Omnifone, the same whitelabel service behind Sony's Music Unlimited, Rara hopes to appeal to the 70 percent of people its research shows "do not 'do' digital music." There's access to the same ten-million-strong music library as other services, and pricing starts at a frugal 99c/p for the first three months (rising to 4.99 from there on in) for the web-only option. Those with a little more tech-smarts can use an Android service too, which launches at 1.99 (going to 9.99) with the web-service bundled in. Those directly north and south of the border can look forward to access later this week, with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore lighting up before Christmas. An iOS app will complete the set soon. Tap the PR after the break for more.
Sony's Music Unlimited subscription service ready to stream tunes to PS3s and Bravia TVs in the UK
The UK and Ireland are today the first to get a taste of Sony's big play for the online music market, the appropriately titled Music Unlimited. This new subscription service (£3.99 a month for Basic access, £9.99 for the Premium stuff) will let you stream a library of about six million songs to your PS3, Bravia telly, or web-connected Blu-ray player, while also offering the option to sync playlists from other music services like iTunes. PC support is available as well, with "a wide range of Sony's portable devices" and Android-based smartphones on the roadmap for future compatibility. Music Unlimited sidles up next to Qriocity as part of Sony's strategy to expand its influence in content delivery, presumably in an effort to thicken its revenue streams, and will be following up this British launch with arrivals in the US, Canada and most of Western Europe in the new year.
MusicStation Max offers unlimited free music downloads to your mobile
After the QTrax debacle, we were a little wary when we started hearing rumbles about a similar service from OmniFone called MusicStation Max that promised, flat-fee, unlimited downloads from all the major labels to your cellphone with no expiration dates -- but color us surprised, it's for real. OmniFone's MusicStation is already a player in the European mobile music game, partnered with giants like Vodafone, and the MusicStation Max launch seems like a natural evolution in the vein of Nokia's Comes With Music program: consumers will buy a pre-licensed MSM phone -- the first will be available from LG in a few months -- and be able to download away for 12 to 18 months, with the ability to sideload back to a computer or to other licensed phones. The exciting part, of course, is that unlike almost every other subscription program on the market your music will still play when the license expires. Add to that the fact that everything from the tracks to playlists to friend recommendations will be backed up on the network in case you lose your device, and we're definitely intrigued -- but we'll wait to see how well all this DRM actually works before we call this thing a winner.
Vodafone preps unlimited music download service
As Vodafone prepares for another busy holiday season, it's pulling out all the stops to entice customers to activate service. Starting in November, customers in the United Kingdom can subscribe to unlimited music downloads with no additional data charges for as little as $4.02 per week. They'll have access to over a million songs from four major labels and independents as well. The service being provided by another UK company, Omnifone, which has a similar deal with Telnor of Sweden. The first phone model the service will be available on is Nokia's N95 (8GB) with more handsets to follow before the holidays.[Via mocoNews]
Vodafone signs Omnifone's MusicStation service for UK
So Vodafone made another little announcement during the unveiling of their iPhone-less Christmas lineup: an exclusive Omnifone music service deal for our more cultured, special British friends. The all-you-can-eat, MusicStation subscription download service will cost punters a weekly tithe of £1.99 (about $4.03) -- an investment which turns to dust once you cancel the subscription. Seems Vodafone, an early favorite for a pan-European iPhone exclusive, is now preparing to compete against a rival European iPhone launch with iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store in addition to Nokia's imminent Music Store. Good luck Voda-Omni-fone, you'll need it.
Omnifone goes live with MusicStation service
Following through on a promise to launch ahead of the iPhone juggernaut, Britain's Omnifone has officially gone live with its MusicStation all-you-can-eat mobile music service. The first rollout is on Sweden's Telenor, offering up unlimited downloads for a "small weekly fee" -- and what's more, data fees are built into the fee which should help alleviate the paranoia of bankruptcy-causing overages from creeping onto subscribers' bills. The service smacks of existing subscription music services; subscribers can download and listen to tracks 'til they're blue in the face, and they simply stop working if service is canceled. The key difference, of course, is that this is the first such service to squarely target phones. Following the Telenor launch, Omnifone looks to go live with a number of other European and Asian operators, though they've got no plans to crack the tough US nut for the time being.[Thanks, Clemens M.]
Omnifone announces MusicStation: unlimited mobile tunes, one price
UK-based Omnifone is using 3GSM today as the backdrop to announce its intriguing "MusicStation" service, promising an all-you-can-eat serving of music delivered over the air to handsets for £1.99 (about $3.88) a week -- about 8 quid a month, if our math's right. According to the company itself, Omnifone's goal is to get its service onto customer's handsets ahead of the iPhone's European launch at the end of the year, and if we have a good read on how well the iPhone's going to sell, we think that's a pretty good plan on its part. The first two operators to sign up for a MusicStation launch (of an alleged 23 in total) are Scandinavian carrier Telenor and South Africa's Vodacom, with several more European launches plan over the course of the year. The music selection may not be half bad, either, with a number of independent labels signed up alongside Universal. Music can be kept as long as the user maintains service, though the downside -- as with every other all-you-can-eat download service -- is that the tunes evaporate into thin air just as soon as it's canceled. All told, not a bad alternative to the offerings we've seen from carriers Statside so far, and with 23 operators apparently on the hook, we have to believe (read: hope) one or two might be on American soil.[Via MocoNews]
Omnifone to be the first with 3G subscription music downloads?
Apparently a London firm that goes by the name of Omnifone is working with Vodafone and 3 to support what could be among the first 3G-based over-the-air subscription music download services. Apparently the biggest of all record labels, Universal, is on board (we wonder how much cash they had to bribe, er, subsidy them with) for Omnifone's sub-£10 per month service, but we've still got questions that need be answered, like: is this PlaysForSure? Can you move tracks to your PC? Can you move PC tracks to your phone? Hopefully we'll find out at 3GSM this week, so watch out.[Thanks, John]
