Last.fm to start charging for Mobile Music Service (UK)
UK based music streaming service, Last.fm, has announced that its mobile service will be dropping the free version, which is currently funded by advertising and will start charging for the service. The change, which has met with a flood of complaints from users, comes into effect from this 15th of February.
From the given date, the service will cost US$4.84 per month.
According to the company, Last.fm Radio will only remain free on the Last.fm website in the US, UK and Germany and for the US and UK users of Xbox Live and Windows Mobile 7 phones.
The company added that while advertising works as a business model for its desktop computer based music service, it found that it was not practical to deliver an advertising supported radio experience on emerging mobile and home entertainment devices and other markets.
This change only affects the radio component of Last.fm’s services on mobile and home entertainment devices.
Other features of the service – such as scrobbling, music and event recommendations, social networking and community forums, and Last.fm’s wiki-based artist information pages – still remain free to the users worldwide.
Telenor launches Wimp, a music streaming service (Norway)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Wimp, a music streaming service for Norwegians has been launched by Telenor Norway along with Aspiro Music and Norwegian multimedia store Platekompaniet.
It’s a subscription-based music service that enables users to gain full, legal access to an online music library through the internet from their PC or mobile phone. New music could be searched and discovered by the users besides creating playlists, favorites, and recommendations.
The company has signed a deal with 20 content providers for over 6.5 million songs, including four major record companies and a number of smaller independent partners. An editorial crew to categorize music, publish playlists and recommending new and old releases with a special focus on Norwegian music is also established.
Orange UK launches Orange Monkey, free music streaming for prepay subscribers
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Orange UK has reportedly launched free music streaming service for its prepay subscribers. The operator has tied up with Universal Music and Channel 4 to launch Orange Monkey service to offer subscribers free access to a large number of songs streamed to any mobile phone.
The service will target the people who fall into 16-34 and will allow them to create, listen and share playlists via the platform.
At present there is only label on board which may limit the choice of music content. According to the analysts the service will attract a large number of subscribers.
