Monday, January 09, 2006

Vodafone and Sony launch new music service

Vodafone, the worlds largest mobile phone operator by sales is set to to launch the worlds latest online music service. And as Apple readys for their big announcements tomorrow at Macworld, they have to face up to yet another giant mobile competitor to their iTunes and iPods. This one may hurt even more than others as Vodafone have partnered up with Sony.

For Vodafone has just announced that it has joined hands with Sony NetServices for the Vodafone Radio DJ service that will offer personalised radio channels streamed to customers' 3G mobile phones and computers.

And the service will instantly offer hundreds of thousands of songs from major labels to smaller independent labels, sold via a monthly subscription.

But, it seems their real USP is personalization, which will allow customers to customise radio channels to their personal tastes by pressing a button to indicate "like" or "dislike" while listening to a song. If a customer presses dislike, the music skips to the next song, and Sony's classification will ensure that subsequent radio channels would avoid songs similar to those rejected.

Whether these personalization features are more gimmick than value, only time will tell. But Apple have just gained another monstrous competitor in the online music market. Vodafone will launch in the next couple of months to 6 major European markets and then roll out across 20 regions worldwide.

These mobile operator music services will serve to grow the overall legal download music market for everyone, but they also put enormous pressure on Apple to make big announcements tomorrow (perhaps even announcing a mobile phone iPod) and to keep innovating and leading through 2006. Even if just to keep ahead of a resurgant and more dangerous looking Sony.

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