Marketing (&) Mischief

Connected mobile music is getting more interesting by the minute. iPhone and Nokia users (to name a few) have already enjoyed the ability to purchase & download music directly on their mobiles. Last FM has also treated it’s users to a mobile version of the Last FM radio and most radio channels have created mobile streams of their programming. What mobile users have been lacking is a on-demand / streaming music service that let’s you freely choose the music you want to listen to.

Enter Spotify – the ground breaking Swedish streaming music service that has spread like wildfire on people’s PC’s and Mac’s.

(In case you have lived in a tree for the past year: Spotify is a music service that let’s you stream and listen to pretty much all the music in the world for free (with ads) or for a 10€ / month fixed price (without ads – my choice). At the moment you need to have an invite from another Spotify user to get in but a simple Google search for “Spotify invites” should help you with that.)

Spotify have finally released some more information of the long-awaited mobile version of the service. The video below demos the service on Google’s Android. The good news is that Android will not be the only supported mobile platform and that yes – it will support offline listening…sweeeet. Can’t wait!

But: If I was Nokia or even Apple…I’d take this sucker pretty damn seriously.

p.s. Message to the folks at Spotify: If you need someone to beta test the mobile version on Nokia or iPhone…feel free to drop me a note.

I feel very nostalgic. I worked with Nokia’s N-Gage the first time around and have obviously followed the progress of Nokia’s ill-fated gaming venture ever since.

A year back Nokia relaunched the revamped N-Gage. As a service, not a gaming phone. Smart move I thought. And it seems that I was right and so was Nokia. The service has now hit one million subscribers and is growing pretty rapidly thanks to the pre-installed N-Gage applications in most new Nokia smart phones.

Ok Nokia. Here’s the plan: Keep the faith even though the times are tough. Get more quality games out, keep on developing the service and trust your staff that have believed and worked hard to make this happen. You NEED to be in mobile gaming and now it seems like you might finally have a fighting chance.