Vodafone UK has ditched Jamba as a supplier of mobile music services and centralized its music platform and associated content with Musiwave, a previous partner for full track downloads.
The operator will sell music and related content under the banner of a song or band, rather than within “silo” product categories, according to Albin Serviant, Senior Director Marketing at Musiwave.
Serviant said that there is now a perception amongst operators that they risk having too much content spread across their portals, and that they need to make the browsing and discovery process a lot simpler. Serviant said that the “transformation ratio” of the “dynamic content store” is about a 30% increase so far in terms of visits to purchases made.
“The mobile screen is small and internal teams are fighting to get the hotspots on the home page – and this is where the bulk of downloads come from. We have to make it much easier for the operator to manage and for the end user to access content.
A dynamic music store means that instead of browsing by silos of ringtone, smart-tone, ringback tone, full track etc etc, the user can browse by artist and track — and receive the full inventory of content around that track or artist,” Serviant said.
Further parts of the platform are a basic recommendation tool, as well as content programming system that keeps content as fresh as possible, making the site look different to a user with each visit.
“We believe that the partnership between Vodafone and Musiwave is significant since it heralds a shift in the way consumers think about and buy mobile content – focusing on their favorite artist, instead of content types,” said Al Russell, head of content services and advanced messaging, Vodafone UK.
“Keeping the mobile content purchasing experience relatively simple and user-friendly is also key to ensure that users complete purchases and are satisfied. We believe Musiwave’s comprehensive online music portal is ideal for Vodafone’s customers, since it focuses on simplicity and usability.”
The total market for full track mobile music would be worth about $560 million, Serviant said. Although that represents double digit growth, the rate of growth has slowed this year, and Serviant attributes that “mainly to user experience” problems