Canadian based Research in Motion is rolling with the times and staying relevant in 2011 with its new Cloud based Music Service. Major companies such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, and EMI have jumped aboard to offer its music to users.
“We are pleased to be partnering with Research In Motion on their BBM Music service. RIM and its large base of BlackBerry Messenger users represent an exciting platform for expanding the reach of commercial digital music around the world,” said Thomas Hesse, president, Global Digital Business, US Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. “The combination of a premium music solution and instant messaging will enable viral music discovery and emphasise the social power of digital music. It also offers an effective way of serving younger consumers by integrating music into the fabric of an important hub of their digital activity.”
The service will launch later this year at around $4.99 a month and will be available in many countries. RIM is not actually providing the core service but instead relying on Omnifone to provide the backend solution. The closed beta will be open later on this week and developers will get a chance to muck around with it.
So what exactly does this service do and how would it benefit you? For one, over 45 million people use BBM and the new music service allows you to start your own and comment on other peoples’ playlists. You can select your top 25 songs and rotate them every month. You can keep your music fresh and see what your friends are listening to.
The profile based music sharing feature is something that is very intriguing. Within the BBM Music app, there is a visual timeline that shows the recent updates of all users within a community, giving a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends, which songs were added or removed, which playlists were created, and what comments were made by your BBM Music friends. This should give you the ability to discover new artists and music.
Cloud computing is something many companies are leaping at while vying for consumers’ attention. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other companies are all starting new cloud sharing solutions to store your music and files. HP has just purchased a UK based company that does cloud based solutions and has seen the writing on the wall that customers are demanding more services for their hardware as opposed to constantly new hardware.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
