Mobile social music network streams tracks direct from your own PC
With mobile music such a hot topic with the imminent launch of the iPhone and Omnifone’s splashdown in Norway, here’s an interesting application from Oxy Systems. phling! (please note the lower case and the exclamation mark) takes a little bit of LastFM, a little bit of Sling, a touch of Orb Networks and comes up with a social networking application that allows you to listen, on your mobile, to music languishing on your PC.
The Java application, downloadable over the air, works a bit like Orb, in that you need to leave you PC switched on and connected to the internet when you are out. Having done that, when you fire up the phling! app on your phone, you connect into the folders and files on your PC that you have marked as being accessible by the app. You can then stream play of those files from your PC to your mobile. Oxy Systems, which is marketing the applicaiton, says it has some operator announcements lined up “in the next few weeks” and has been working on the technology for four years.
Adrian Bisaz, vp of business development for the privately held, 12-strong Oxy Systems, said that operators like the system because it doesn’t impinge on their existing music strategies, but allows them to hook their users to the music they have already bought and paid for on their PC. He reckons subscribers in Europe will pay between €5-10 a month for the service to be bundled with a data plan – a subscription that can be shared 100% between Oxy and the operator, as no music license fees are involved.
The slight snag at the moment is that anything with Apple’s Fairplay DRM in it is not supported, although Bisaz says all other DRM is, and the company is “working” on Windows Music DRM. MP3s, AAC and WMA formats are supported, Bisaz said.
As well as simply giving you access to your on music, the application adds a little bit of social networking, letting users set up a profile, and let others see their playlists, make recommendations, see lists of most-played, top-rated music and so on. Users can even list up to six people who are allowed to access music held on their own computer and stream play to their own mobiles.
Bisaz said the number is limited to 6 to keep well within a threshold of what constitutes private performance, hence keeping well away from the record companies’ ire aournd licensing. Also, he points out that files are not being shared and swapped, it’s merely a streaming format.
The second plus for operators from the service, Bisaz said, apart from the revenue share on the sub, would be the e-commerce capability added to the service, allowing users to buy a track they like. This could hook directly into operators’ own music platforms, he said, generating increased sales.
Bisaz also said Oxy is talking to advertiser and media brands about the application, “giving them a way to participate in this mobile music growth market.”
At the moment Oxy has 25 phones which can support the app, across Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung portfolios. Being a Java application there should theoretically not be a problem expanding that.
Although there are other remote access to your PC products out there (Orb Networks being one example) Bisaz said that phling! has the advantage of being specifically designed for music, and having additional functionality around sharing and networking built in.