Musiwave to provide packaged music content through user-friendly portal
Openwave subsidiary, Musiwave, a provider of mobile music entertainment services to operators and media companies worldwide, has announced it will supply Vodafone UK’s hosted music services for music video downloads as well as music and video ringtones and artist wallpapers on Vodafone live!
Musiwave says it has launched the initial phase of its services for Vodafone UK and will be releasing several phases across WAP and web to deliver a “user friendly and integrated music portal”.
According to Musiwave, specialised content programming tools will enable users to access the latest content through a ‘comprehensive’ mobile music portal, with songs updated daily and determined by the latest charts results and radio airplay. The Musiwave service will also remember the preferences of a returning customer and will recommend additional products that relate to the customer’s previous purchases.
The Vodafone music store is said to be “extremely user friendly”, simplifying the user experience by ensuring that customers minimize the number of ‘clicks’ needed to access content. Musiwave says that users will no longer browse by categories such as ringtones, wallpapers, video or full tracks, but by artist and song.
For example, customers can click on the latest track from their favorite artist, and access all available content for the artist including full track music downloads. This process makes it easier to cross-sell between various types of digital content related to a single artist, says Musiwave.
The service will provide access to a large catalog of music content licensed from all the major and independent record labels including V2, Beggars, Pias, Sanctuary, Zebralution and Ministry of Sound.
“Smart operators like Vodafone are looking to provide the most personalized experience for their customers, and one of the biggest obstacles they face is that there are so many things to promote. As a result, customers can feel confused and overwhelmed when looking to purchase mobile content,” said Guillaume Decugis, vice president and general manager, Musiwave. “Our dynamic content store is therefore key – it provides customers with a simple, unified view, letting them choose the content products they want for each artist and track, rather than forcing the customer to search in silo channels to find the content they want.”
“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.”
Musiwave provides mobile music entertainment services to more than 35 mobile operators in 25 countries including Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Orange, SFR and Amena.