Motorola's new iRadio service -- that it has been talking about for a year or so -- will allow subscribers to download (not stream) hundreds of "channels" to their computers for transfer to iRadio-enabled cellular phones, but won't offer downloads via cellular. I discussed iRadio yesterday in my CTIA WICWeblog article, and today notice that Stan Sorensen, senior director of product management and marketing for Melodeo (a wireless podcast and music software platform company), disparages iRadio for the lack of wireless downloading capability.
Sorensen writes in his excellent wireless podcast-oriented weblog:
"Radio doesn't require going through a PC. But because Moto is using the ROKR as it's [sic] primary iRadio phone they have no choice. Personally I don't see myself sifting through 435 channels using the Moto UI, downloading my choices to a PC, then tethering my phone.
"Why does this supposedly leading edge mobile phone company continue to ignore the mobile part of the equation?
"Oh, and with Mobilcast I have access to more than 400 stations, we call them podcasts, and I can download directly to my phone. Over the air. The way a phone was designed to be used."
Motorola's philosophy
Motorola obviously sees the revenue opportunities for wireless music, but has a "political" problem entering the business of wireless downloads because the cellular operators are getting into that market, and the operators don't want competition from a hardware supplier.
I certainly do see cellular subscribers transferring their music -- and podcasts -- to phones via computers. With Apple iTunes charging $.99 for songs and other Internet-based music portals charging similar prices, subscribers are used to downloading music to computers and then into their iPods and other digital music players.
It's no great stretch -- no stretch at all, actually -- to substitute a cellular phone for a music player. This assume consumers will want to listen to music on their phones. I believe they will.
Questions
A big question is: How many music portals will subscribers use?
iTunes already satisfies the needs of many iPod users and the service also includes downloads of videos, audiobooks, television programs and free podcasts. Consumers who aren't in the iTunes camp use a variety of other music portals.
Will consumers pay $7 a month -- the price Motorola has named -- for iRadio, in addition to other cellular services?
Also, I wonder what role -- if any -- podcasts will play in the iRadio mix.
Melodeo's position is not surprising given what they are selling out there. The idea of streaming music over cellular is a dead duck given the cost of bits. Why would you do that in any case, when you can cache music on a GB of cache that you'll soon have on your phone
Posted by: iago | April 06, 2006 at 12:57 AM