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).
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).
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.