by David Gilson
March 15th, 2010 | Posted in Audio | 
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Cannonical enters the music market
Cannonical are making some interesting moves with respect to making their desktop Linux distribution, Ubuntu, more friendly to mainstream users. They now have a Dropbox like service called Ubuntu One. Of which, the short term goal is to sync users’ files and application settings, via the cloud, across all of their Ubuntu computers.
Further to this, it seems that Cannonical clearly has aspirations to deliver DRM free music to desktop users. They have already given a vague outline of incorporating an ‘Ubuntu One Music Store’ into their default music player, RhythmBox. An alpha tester, “Popey”, of Ubuntu’s next desktop release, 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”, has already blogged that Cannonical are likely to use 7digital as the back-end for this service (link). He has also blogged that RhythmBox has been prepared to both: feature the music store, and look for MP3 tracks stored on users’ UbuntuOne drive (link). The latter means that when a user buys music from the Ubuntu One Music Store, the MP3 files will be available to the user on any of his/her Ubuntu computers.
The final tantalising piece of the Puzzle is that another Ubuntu 10.04 alpha tester has reported that it is now possible to view tracks and playlists stored on his non-jailbroken iPhone.
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by Steve O'Hear
October 6th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | View Comments
Like many British acts, UK-based music download service 7digital is hoping to conquer America. Today the company announced that its 6 million plus strong MP3 music store has opened its doors in the US, with tracked offered from Universal Music Group, Warner, EMI, Sony and an array independent labels.
To coincide and spearhead 7digital’s US launch, the company has also released the BlackBerry MP3 Music Store application for RIM’s latest range of smartphones (BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Tour, BlackBerry Curve 8520 and BlackBerry Storm).
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by Steve O'Hear
April 7th, 2009 | Posted in Audio | Comments Off
7digital has announced a partnership with AOL to integrate its music download store with AOL’s popular Windows-based music player Winamp, following similar deals with Spotify and Songbird.
Built using 7digital’s publicly available API, European users of Winamp can purchase tracks from 7digital’s six million strong MP3 catalogue through the application’s ‘Now Playing’ menu, as well as access additional artist, track and album information.
The partnership follows a similar arrangement with open source music player Songbird (a top ten digital lifestyle product of 08) and the new favorite kid on the block, music streaming service Spotify (last100 review), although in Songbird’s case, the 7digtal store is more prominent, featuring its own dedicated iTunes Store-esque menu item (see screen shot below).
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by Steve O'Hear
December 3rd, 2008 | Posted in Audio | View Comments
With little or no fanfare, Amazon’s MP3 store has arrived in the UK. And in keeping with the credit crunch spirit of late, there are some real bargains on offer. Albums currently start at £3 (approx. $4.5) and some individual tracks are being offered for as little as 59 pence (87 cents). If you’re old school like me, for example, the first few Led Zeppelin albums fall in the £3 bargain bucket selection. Nice.
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