last100 » 7digital

Ubuntu One Music Store – The new iTunes?

David Gilson — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:12:16 +0000

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.

If all of this comes to fruition, it is significant, and a bold play by Cannonical. Even if the iPhone compatibility doesn’t work out, there are plenty of other mass-storage compliant music players out there, including mobile phones, that would sync with the U1 Music Store, just like Apple hardware does with iTunes.

It is also worth considering how Apple might react to the hardware compatibility. It really depends on what level of intellectual property needed to be encroached upon to make Ubuntu and the iPhone talk to each other. Although, we saw Apple employ counter measures against Palm last year, when their “Pre” smart phone was made to sync with iTunes. Finally, Apple is currently demonstrating more than ever that it is not at all gun shy when it comes to litigating (rather than innovating).

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7digital launches in the US, BlackBerry music download store provides the splash

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:00:23 +0000

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).

Tracks can be downloaded over over a cellular connection (GPRS, EDGE or 3G) in the lower 64kbs bit-rate MP3 format, for faster download and “instant” listening, and then when/if a Wi-Fi connection becomes available, the app automatically upgrades each track to a higher-quality 320kbps MP3.

The BlackBerry app is also able to access a 7digital user’s “digital locker” so that any previously purchased tracks can be re-downloaded when needed.

7digital has long been a proponent of DRM-free music, with CEO Ben Drury campaigning for and rightfully predicting the demise of copy protection in the download-to-own digital music space, while the US launch provides consumers across the pond with yet another DRM-free music option, with Apple’s iTunes, Amazon MP3, Napster, Best Buy, and others already operating in a very crowded market.

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7digtal powers MP3 downloads on AOL’s Winamp, following similar Spotify and Songbird partnerships

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:04:47 +0000

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).

All three services get a kick back from 7digital for integrating paid-for downloads, which are offered as 320kbps MP3 compaitble with almost any music player, including iPods.

The availability of 7digital’s store through each application varies somewhat. The Songbird partnership currently covers the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland, with 7digital on Spotify available in UK, France, Spain and Germany, while the Winamp deal is Europe only, including the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Ireland.

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Amazon MP3 arrives in the UK

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:59:08 +0000

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.

As is standard with any digital music store-related announcement these days, we received a press release from competitor 7Digital offering up the “strong” views of CEO Ben Drury.

“We’d like to congratulate Amazon UK for finally entering the MP3 market albeit a little late. We announced on September 16th that we were the first in Europe to achieve this. It’s great that general retailers like Amazon clearly recognise the importance of digital music for consumers and the MP3 universal music format which works on all devices.”

Drury then goes onto bemoan Amazon’s lower bit-rate: “their MP3 downloads are only 256kps quality so they are not delivering the high quality 320kps MP3’s unlike 7digital”.

Doesn’t sound all that congratulatory after all.

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