Music for the masses

Hi

So Nokia came out with new Xpress devices. Nice, but what does Express mean? Please leave a comment if you happen to know. Anyways: Nokia and also other competitors are really pushing to the music scene. I'll focus more on Nokia as their news hit the streets here in Fin more often than for example Samsung.

Below is pictured one of their devices. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic has both numeric keypad and slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I feel this look squire nice. Nevertheless I might be already too old to judge stuff like this... eventhough I am part of the younger generation.



More info on the release can be found under: Nokia events

So Nokia is really going after the music via Comes with Music and Nokia Music Store which currently operates in 15 countries. Nokia is planning on adding more within this year (5-10 stores) Personally I feel that the Comes with Music “idea” is more revolutionary than the plain shops. Also the Comes with Music “idea” is to some extent not perfect. By perfect I mean some of the DRM issues.

However the future aspect of the whole music mania (in addition to getting free DRM music) is the notion that in the future consumers will not need to purchase any music at all. Nor will they need to "keep" music i.e. mp3 files etc. Either the music is free, subsidized by Ads or included in the device/service or “the” cloud will keep you music. Remember Googles plans on integrating a G-drive to the cloud i.e. online? Anyway: Comes with music it works in the sense that the device price includes the “extra” cost.

Also other companies are getting interested on music: Amazon launches DRM-free "Amazon MP3" music downloads. Engadged

My favourite “player” is Spotify. "There are no restrictions in terms of what you can listen to or when." You can access all music fro free - however no download i.e. cannot keep music, but the service remembers your playlist and is VERY fast so who needs to keep the files. In addition they are moving to the mobile space as well.

To end this post: A cartoon from Dilbert: