Blackberry has just launched a new music service that will let BlackBerry users share and discover new tunes with their friends through BlackBerry Messenger. It is an attempt by Research in Motion to improve its BlackBerry Messenger service to compete against Apple and Android. BlackBerry smartphones do not offer a RIM-enabled way to buy music, although audio and other files can be loaded onto the devices from a computer.
Over 5 million people use BBM, which allows BlackBerry users with data plans to pass text messages, pictures and other files to each other without incurring charges from their network carrier. Now added to this is a global music sharing service.
BBM Music is a cloud-based music service where BBM users can share music as well as find new music through a community based library. With BBM Music all BlackBerry Messenger users can build a personal music profile with up to 50 songs. You can refresh your profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month. Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are shared with your BBM Music Community, and each member of your community can share up to 50 songs from their profile with you. So with each friend that is added to BBM Music, you grow your music collection, since the songs from their profile become available to you. In other words if someone has 30 friends on BBM Music and each of those friends is sharing 50 tracks, the user’s total BBM Music library will have 1,550 tracks.
Users can select music from a catalog with millions of songs from leading music companies, including EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.
In addition, you can also check recent updates of all users within your community. This is possible by viewing the app where you can see a visual timeline that shows the recent updates. The apps give you a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends and which songs were added or removed. You can create multiple playlists from music in your profile as well as all of your friends’ profiles, and you can see which friend contributed each song while it plays. The apps also offers a great tracking feature where you can also comment on a friends' songs and playlists and keep track of how many friends are listening to your music.
Users have access to full tracks and can listen to music offline i.e since music can be saved to phones for offline listening it allows users to access songs even when they don’t have wireless coverage.
Your music profile is accessible to all of your friends on BBM that join BBM Music. What remains to be seen is that whether this added service is convincing enough for users to buy Blackberry smartphones as an alternative to Android or iPhone. The social music service surely makes their phones better than Android or iPhone alternatives.
This article was published in August 2011.
Over 5 million people use BBM, which allows BlackBerry users with data plans to pass text messages, pictures and other files to each other without incurring charges from their network carrier. Now added to this is a global music sharing service.
BBM Music is a cloud-based music service where BBM users can share music as well as find new music through a community based library. With BBM Music all BlackBerry Messenger users can build a personal music profile with up to 50 songs. You can refresh your profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month. Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are shared with your BBM Music Community, and each member of your community can share up to 50 songs from their profile with you. So with each friend that is added to BBM Music, you grow your music collection, since the songs from their profile become available to you. In other words if someone has 30 friends on BBM Music and each of those friends is sharing 50 tracks, the user’s total BBM Music library will have 1,550 tracks.
Users can select music from a catalog with millions of songs from leading music companies, including EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.
In addition, you can also check recent updates of all users within your community. This is possible by viewing the app where you can see a visual timeline that shows the recent updates. The apps give you a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends and which songs were added or removed. You can create multiple playlists from music in your profile as well as all of your friends’ profiles, and you can see which friend contributed each song while it plays. The apps also offers a great tracking feature where you can also comment on a friends' songs and playlists and keep track of how many friends are listening to your music.
Users have access to full tracks and can listen to music offline i.e since music can be saved to phones for offline listening it allows users to access songs even when they don’t have wireless coverage.
Your music profile is accessible to all of your friends on BBM that join BBM Music. What remains to be seen is that whether this added service is convincing enough for users to buy Blackberry smartphones as an alternative to Android or iPhone. The social music service surely makes their phones better than Android or iPhone alternatives.
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