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The mobile finds your favorite songs

September 24, 2004

Looking for Anastacia but stuck on a too-sweet boy band? Ericsson's M-USE service can end the frustration.

The M-USE music service was designed with the consumer in mind, focusing on great content and on making it easy for everyone to find the music they like.

 

Already available through operators in central Europe and launched by TeliaSonera Sweden in early August, M-USE delivers a wide variety of realtones (ringtones playing the original music), polyphonic ringtones, StarMMS (artist pictures and music clips), and a selection of artist greetings and autographs.

 

The head of Mobile Music at Ericsson Mobility World, Svante Holm, says one of M-USE's strengths is its acceptance within the music industry, as working closely with the record labels, globally and locally, guarantees quality and access to the latest releases.

 

"The labels see a lot of untapped potential in the mobile, and in Ericsson they have an established partner which can help them realize this potential world-wide, perhaps faster than any other player out there," Holm says.

 

"And, we work hard to be a good partner. For example, in order to protect content from being forwarded illegally, we take digital rights management as far as possible today. We also won't work with copied content."

Music is one of the most requested mobile services among today's users and, not surprisingly, many operators are now offering packages. What makes M-USE stand out from the crowd is its easy-to-use format and built-in recommendation features. "Companies out there today provide download platforms, but you have to scroll through lists of ringtones. It's annoying and it will not work when people start downloading full-length songs to their mobiles," Holm says. "Think about it: each major record label could offer about a million tracks to choose from; there is just no way to scroll through that, especially not while viewing it all through the little screen of a mobile phone.

 

"Our service automatically personalizes the experience for the user. It basically assesses what you like and gives you that, instead of that plus all the other stuff you don't like."

 

"For instance, you may like jazz and hip-hop (though that tends to be a little-used combination) whereas I like rock and alternative music. My M-USE service will look completely different to yours and we will certainly not be recommended the same bands or songs."

 

Holm says the team worked hard to develop and fine-tune the personalization features, honoring the commitment to provide the most user-friendly service possible.

 

Ericsson's commitment to ease-of-use is driving M-USE in new directions. For example, Holm says Ericsson is working with major radio and television networks around the world to bring further opportunities for users to easily access mobile music and video as they see and hear it. As mobile phone technology itself evolves, so too will M-USE, with the aim of providing full-track downloads, full-length videos and music news - especially the gossip.

 

"We are not just selling a ringtone," Holm says. "We have really thought about the consumer, have built a service with the consumer in mind. The people using M-USE should have fun and get a great music experience. He or she should definitely want to come back, they should be excited."

 

M-USE is part of Ericsson's Managed Services Hosting offering, where Ericsson and the operators go to market as true business partners.

 

This is M-USE:
M-USE is a mobile music solution developed by Ericsson. The scalable platform has been built to offer large amounts of content in an administrable way for the end-user, based on advanced recommendation technology. The platform supports the latest DRM functionality and offers a broad range of content, such as ringtones (polyphonic and realtones), artist greetings, wallpapers, full audio/ video downloads and streaming. The service is integrated, hosted and managed by Ericsson.