As part of initiative of online mobile services (Ovi), Nokia Has announced its Music Store service at 29 October 2007. With a single account, music lovers can access the Nokia Music Store via their desktop computer or directly from optimized Nokia devices beginning with the Nokia N81 and Nokia N95 8GB. You can browse for new music, get recommendations or search for your favorite artists, songs or albums all from the palm of your hand.
Once a track captures your attention, you can add it to your wishlist to buy later or purchase it immediately for download to your device without having to download the same song again on your computer. You can also transfer purchased songs via your PC to compatible Nokia devices, including the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and Nokia 5610 XpressMusic. You can pay by a variety of payment options, including credit cards, PayPal and pre-paid vouchers.
Nokia Music Store will offer seamless over-the-air music purchases and downloads directly from handsets combined with automatic two-way synchronization to the host PC. Other features include dynamic music recommendations and a "Mix Me" feature for creating playlists of recommended songs based on genre preferences. The192Kbps (DRM protected, only) WMA tracks will run €1 (about $1.36) with entire albums starting at €10 ($13.66); PC streaming will also be available for €10 a month. Look for it in Europe before the year's out, expanding to other markets thereafter.
The Nokia Music Store is opening across key European markets this fall with additional stores in Europe and Asia opening over the coming months. Individual tracks will cost EUR 1.00 and albums from EUR 10.00, with a monthly subscription for PC streaming for EUR 10.00.
Other interesting bits from the evening include the news that both O2 and Vodafone will be carrying the Nokia N81 handset. TechDigest found an additional piece of information and is reporting that the Vodafone version will ship with both Nokia Music Shop and the subscription based Omniphone Music Station. Of course, how heavily Vodafone will promote the N81 remains open to debate. The N81 had previously drawn attention after several UK carriers (Orange and T-Mobile) were reported to have refused to carry the handset with Nokia services preloaded.
All of this is rather short sighted on the part of the carriers. It only takes one carrier thinking it can gain first mover advantage (O2 in this case) by promoting the new handsets and services for any stone walling on the part of the carriers as a whole to be ineffective. Moreover the N95 8GB, which will be heavily promoted because of the track record of the N95 classic, will support the same services, making the whole N81 saga even more ridiculous.
Here's a quick round up of what we know (though there is scope for change) about the Nokia Music Shop:
• There are two versions of the store, one for mobile devices and one for PCs. The Music Shop is initially web based for both mobile and PC versions (initially Internet Explorer only on the latter).
A dedicated Windows application, similar to iTunes, will become available in due course (it was demonstrated at Go Play, but will not be available at launch). The mobile version of the store offers full functionality, including payment and download over any connection bearer (realistically 3G or WiFi). If you download a song via the mobile store then it will be synchronised back to the PC when you next connect up the mobile.
• The four big music labels have been signed up (EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner), along with a variety of independent labels. Nokia is also placing an emphasis on delivering local music, so we can expect to see some regional variation in what is available and/or promoted. The range of music does seem to be very broad, with success even on some of the more obscure searches. All told there will be several million tracks available.
• Music is protected via Windows Media DRM. Tracks will be encoded in WMA format at 196 kbps. At some point in the future, the DRM will switch to Microsoft PlayReady which allows for greater flexibility, supports more media types (e.g. videos, ringtones) and supports additional formats (e.g. AAC+). Nokia is aware of the move to DRM-free music, but is somewhat constrained by its partners.
• 30 second previews are available in both the PC and Mobile versions of the store.
• Payment methods include credit card, PayPal and Premium SMS (in select countries). Users will have the option to put a certain amount of credit into their account (similar to PAYG top ups) or can pay on download. There is also support for vouchers and we suspect some devices will come with vouchers in the box to encourage initial usage.
• You can save songs (tagging) in the mobile store for later purchase and download in the PC store.
• The PC version has support for unlimited streaming music subscriptions at a cost of around £8 per month. Streaming subscriptions will not be available for mobile, although it is a likely that this feature will be added in the future. The twist on this compared to similar services is that various playlists will be made available with 'one click to stream' functionality. The playlists will be a combination of human edited lists (e.g. from famous artists or celebrities) and automatically generated lists based on user preferences.
• The store is, apparently, UK only for the moment, other countries will follow shortly.
Via: AAS
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