Cingular Music Brings New Music Experience to Mobile Phones Owners

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- Comprehensive music subscription service of its kind ever offered by a U.S. wireless carrier.
- The largest collection of mobile music content available on the handset from the leading online music retailers." title="Cingular Music Brings New Music Experience to Mobile Phones Owners">Cingular Wireless says it has launched Cingular Music, an integrated, on-the-go music experience. Cingular teamed with Microsoft to incorporate Windows Media Digital Rights Management into select handsets, making it possible for customers to enjoy and discover subscription music from the wireless phone. Cingular Music delivers several industry firsts in regards to subscription music:
- Comprehensive music subscription service of its kind ever offered by a U.S. wireless carrier.
- The largest collection of mobile music content available on the handset from the leading online music retailers.
- First and only U.S. carrier to enable mobile portability of online subscription music content from Napster and Yahoo!.
- Simple one-click access to a complete-suite of music related content, giving users easy access to all things music on their phone in one location.

With Cingular Music, Cingular has dramatically accelerated the convergence of wireless and music. Although the ability to listen to music on the cell phone is not new, what is unique about Cingular Music is the ease of use and open access it provides to music-related content. Cingular Music makes it easy to take your music with you and offers the widest selection of music content in the industry today, including integration with Napster and Yahoo! Music, as well as support for other music stores. Cingular Music also seamlessly integrates with eMusic, which sells tracks in the universally compatible MP3 format.

With Cingular Music, Cingular is the first U.S. carrier to distribute subscription music to the handset – allowing consumers to extend their existing music libraries not rebuild them. And, for consumers who are new to subscription-based music, Cingular is making it possible for them to discover millions of new songs and take their favorites with them wherever they go. Highlights include:

Napster: Cingular customers can fill and refill their phone by simply connecting their Cingular phone to their PC and downloading their favorite tracks from among Napster’s more than 2 million songs. In fact, Cingular and Napster are currently offering a free 60-day trial so users can see just how easy and fast it is to side-load unlimited music to your handset. Additionally, from their mobile phone, customers can access Napster Mobile and browse the entire Napster catalog, listen to 30-second samples, rate songs, and recommend music picks with friends. Consumers can also buy songs on the handset for delivery to the PC for side-loading later. Ericsson is hosting, integrating and managing the round-the-clock operations for Napster Mobile, a service co-developed by Napster and Ericsson leveraging on Napster’s vast music catalogue and Ericsson’s mobile platform and personalization content.

Yahoo! Music: With Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go, Cingular customers have unlimited access to over 2 million songs to play and transfer from their PC to their mobile device. With Yahoo! Music for Mobile, Cingular customers can, on their mobile handsets, browse the extensive Yahoo! Music catalog for album, artist and song content as well as receive personalized music recommendations and remotely add songs direct to their PC. Free to all Yahoo! Music users is the Yahoo! Music Jukebox, a digital music player that allows consumers, from their PC, to play, rip and burn MP3s and CDs, share playlists, listen to LAUNCHcast Radio, and transfer music seamlessly to mobile devices.

eMusic: Currently, consumers who purchase a Sony Ericsson W810i or Sony Ericsson W300i will be able to enjoy a free "in-box" offer to side-load up to 50 songs from eMusic’s vast catalog of two million tracks, allowing them to enjoy and discover music from both classic and new artists such as Johnny Cash, Spoon, Ray Charles, Neko Case, Blind Willie Johnson, Miles Davis, Ying Yang Twins, Bob Marley, Black Flag, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Lucinda Williams. Not only can consumers transfer eMusic’s MP3 tracks to multiple devices and burn them to CD, they also own, not rent, tracks purchased from eMusic.

Cingular also teamed with XM Satellite Radio to offer mobile access to audio streams of 25 popular commercial-free music channels. Through XM Radio Mobile, Cingular customers will be able to enjoy a variety of music virtually anytime, anywhere. Cingular will launch the service November 6. The XM Radio Mobile application was developed and will be hosted by MobiTV.

Cingular realizes that simply offering music on the handset is not enough. A true mobile music solution is designed to make it easy and intuitive for consumers to experience the full gamut of music content available on the handset today. Cingular Music combines "all things music" that exists on your handset and delivers it to one central hub, making it simple for users to access and enjoy. Cingular Music contains eight distinct menu options:

Music Player: Music Player is where you can access the phone’s entire catalog of music. Within Music Player, users can create their own playlists by choosing songs from the All Songs menu list as well as have songs played in random order.

Shop Music: The Shop Music folder is where users go to purchase or explore music content from Napster and Yahoo. Music, depending on your handset. Users can also personalize their phones by purchasing ringtones and Answer Tones from the Cingular MEdia Mall.

MusicID: For the first time, users can identify a song with MusicID, Cingular’s music recognition service, and then purchase that song from the handset by directly linking into the Napster library where the song(s) can later be side-loaded. Beyond this new feature, MusicID can easily identify a recorded song by a simple press of the button. Within seconds, a song can be analyzed among a database of more than 3 million songs and then, when identified, you are provided the name of the artist and the track. And, if the song matches an available ringtone, you can easily purchase it without having to spend time searching.

Music Videos: The Music Videos folder provides a direct link to Cingular’s video offerings, including video content from MTV Networks’ premiere MTV, VH1 and CMT music brands; Warner Music (Music Choice); as well as original video footage from Cingular Sounds Live (CSL) concert series.

Streaming Music: The Streaming Music folder is where users can listen to various genres of music content from either XM Radio Mobile or MobiRadio, depending on their handset.

The Buzz: The Buzz is the place to go to access Billboard Mobile, a mobile music application that gives Cingular customers access to music and entertainment news, Billboard charts and local concert information, directly from the handset.

Community: Comprised of artist fan sites and chat rooms, the Community folder is where music fans can connect with others who share similar interests. From sharing music and reviews within a particular community (via SMS or IM) or simply listening to music from your favorite artists’ site, the Community folder is a one-stop-shop for discovering and re-discovering music.

Music Apps: The Music Apps folder is the home for other new and exciting music-centric applications including Mobilcast, a podcasting service, and Hip Hop Official, a music video application.

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