8.21.2011

RIM soon to announce BlackBerry music service, but why?

Do smartphone users need another music service in their lives? If they use BlackBerry devices, RIM thinks the answer is yes. The company is reportedly developing its own music service called BBM Music, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke with the Wall Street Journal. The service may launch as soon as next week, and is said to work with RIM's BlackBerry Messenger system.

The sources claim that BBM Music isn't meant to compete with dominating services like iTunes or Spotify, while simultaneously pointing out that it will cost "significantly less" than Spotify (which currently offers free, $4.99, and $9.99 monthly tiers). Instead, BBM Music will supposedly allow users to access 50 songs at a time and share those songs over BlackBerry Messenger with friends.

The sources say that this is largely targeted at "young users" who want to customize their phones—yes, the goal is to woo all those swaths of young, hip teenagers and early adults who are (not) falling over themselves to buy a BlackBerry at the moment. The WSJ doesn't specifically say what kind of customizations would be possible, but the mere mention of it implies that users might be able to set the songs as ringtones, ringback tones, or find some other young-person-type-use for the music.

What the sources did say was that RIM has already signed deals with the Big Four music labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group. The company had apparently planned to announce BBM Music "late this week," in fact, but decided to put it off for unstated reasons. (Perhaps RIM didn't want to compete with the news of Google's purchase of Motorola or HP twisting the knife into webOS.)

But because the majority of RIM's following comes from the enterprise, we have to wonder how much a music service—even one that works with BlackBerry Messenger—will cure its market share woes. Even if it only costs a few dollars per month, how many business users will fork it over for only 50 songs at a time? For that matter, how many young people would do the same? ars technica

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