New Mobile Music Service Works Via Voice Calls
from the well,-that's-different... dept
There are a bunch of different mobile music services out there (and more popping up every day). Some involve getting downloads to your phone, and others involve streaming (and, of course, there are things like ringtones and ringbacktones for specific functions). But Music Ally points us to a new service launched with Orange UK (and Universal Music) that will let users dial a voice call to hear some music. Basically, you call into an IVR system, and get a variety of options on what playlist you want to listen to. There's some functionality where you can set up your own playlist on a computer, and then access it via the IVR. Of course, the service is quite limited, especially in that it only has Universal Music music right now. The article describes the service as "free" but also targeting "pay as you go" customers, which makes me wonder if people are paying for those voice "minutes" that they'd use (which could add up). Perhaps I'm missing something? I also would think the very limited selection is an issue. Still, it's fascinating to see someone try such an experiment to get around some of the other barriers -- especially for folks with lower-end phones that don't have all the bells and whistles and app stores of higher end phones.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: mobile, music, voice calls
Companies: orange uk, universal
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not the first actually,
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Re: not the first actually,
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Similarly
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Not sure if I agree with this. It sounds more like a service aimed at people who want to listen to music but are either worried about the legality of downloads, don't want to pay iTunes prices or are too clueless to work out how to operate their computer/phone. Why would anyone tech-savvy pay £10/month for streaming when there's so many free options?
I doubt "geeks" would touch this with a barge pole, especially with Spotify and many other web radio apps being available. It'll be the tech-clueless and those who haven't bought smartphones - not "geeks" by any stretch of the imagination.
I also wonder how much life is really in this service. Surely, using voice calls will shorten battery life considerably and make people miss calls whenever their voice line is tied up with music streaming? I know I wouldn't be happy for paying for such a service...
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Re: Audionow
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According to the article, so long as you buy £10's worth of credit every month, which comes to about eight to ten hours of talktime to another mobile on the same network, you get free unlimited access to it and three hundred free text messages. That's a good enough deal that I might be prepared to put up with the poor fidelity; after all, a mobile phone speaker really isn't all that much worse than the headphones bundled with most MP3 players.
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quality
so it "works", it's just horrendously lower than radio quality.
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