Cingular offers music online
Cingular Music offers access to Napster, eMusic and Yahoo Music.
Cingular has announced plans to make a foray into giving their customers access to online digital music services such as Napster, eMusic and Yahoo Music. Cingular adopted the partnership approach with subscription music services as the cornerstone of its mobile music strategy. Cingular Music is the fourth wireless music service to launch in the US. Their rivals already have music stores like Verizon's V CAST Music, Sprint's Power Vision, and Amp'd's music store. But the major difference being, all three service providers offer the ability to download songs directly to your phone. While on the other hand Cingular lets you select songs from the Yahoo! and Napster catalogs to bookmark on your phone to download.
For the unique offering Cingular is adding digital rights management technology from Microsoft - known as PlaysForSure. This technology would be made available onto five models of mobile phones that will allow users to transfer tracks from subscription services to them just like any other portable subscription device, all at no charge.
This also includes music downloaded service using Microsoft’s subscription DRM technology - AOL Music, Napster, Rhapsody, Urge, and Yahoo Music. But for today AOL Music, Rhapsody and MTV's Urge services will not be accessible through Cingular till the time these companies develop a wireless portal, which will happen anytime soon.
How Cingular Music works
Cingular will be working individually with each other music download service providers like AOL Music, Napster, Rhapsody, Urge, and Yahoo Music to offer wireless access to various account services. Users will be able to browse and access their accounts of Napster, eMusic and Yahoo Music to tag songs they would later onto their mobiles,
when synced with a PC. The subscribers of Napster hold a special privilege though. These subscribers will be able to listen to 30-second clips, buy songs from ths store at 99-cents each, and identify songs heard on the radio using Cingular’s MusicID service to then acquire via Napster. Cingular enriches the experience of music by an exclusive web page that lets you browse the music download service provider' catalogs.
Gregg Brown, Cingular's strategic marketing and business development manager for music said, "The whole concept of portable music is becoming more mainstream … this brings that convergence even more to the forefront, by us offering the widest selection of content." He added that the alliance with Napster and Yahoo doesn't mean the end of Cingular's relationship with Apple. The relationship with Apple is very strong and Cingular is not picking one format over the other. Currently, Cingular is the exclusive service provider with three iTunes phones in its product lineup, the Motorola ROKR E1, SLVR L7, and RAZR V3i.
What’s Missing?
Cingular missed a trick by not launching the ability to provide the users the ability to directly download music onto their mobiles. But Cingular has plans to add this feature over the next six months and says eMusic is the likely first to go live.
Anything more?
Additionally, Cingular Music service will be provide the following:
* 25 channels of streaming radio from XM Radio Mobile (at an additional cost)
* Melodeo Mobilecast podcasting
* Billboard Mobile News
* Concert information
* Music videos from MTV
Cingular Music is launching five phones, but only the Samsung Sync gives the full experience of their services whereas there is some lack of format supports on other phones. The Samsung Sync costs $49.99 with a two-year contract; it has a gorgeous 2.2-inch 320-by-240 high-resolution screen, 2-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth and support for Cingular's high-speed HSDPA network. As a quad-band GSM phone, the SYNC will work around the world, allowing users to stay connected to friends and family. Not to forget the music on the move feature!
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