Choice service from Nokia

News

Tim Green Sep 27 2006, 10:15am

Nokia inched closer to becoming a music vendor with the launch of www.musicrecommenders.com, a service that lets consumers buy tracks chosen by 40 influential record shops from all over the world.

Stores such as Fat Beats (New York), Pure Groove (London) and Mona Records (Tokyo) will select 10 tracks each a month across 12 genres. Each song will be available as a free 30 second preview or a paid for download. The delivery will be managed by Nokia's recent acquisition Loudeye.

Nokia described the launch as the first stage of its Loudeye integration and confirmed that its 'big music experience' will come next summer. It also hinted that a new games strategy will be announced in ther new year.

For those forgetting Nokia is also a hardware company, the firm continued its assault on the music phone space with new editions of its N70, N73 and N91 devices.

Each has been launched in black with double its existing memory: 1GB, 2GB and 8GB respectively.

The company made moves in the mid-range music phone market too with the 5300 XpressMusic (2GB microSD card, dedicated music keys), 5200 and 3250 XpressMusic. Finally, Nokia unveiled the clamshell N75 and its most powerful device to date, the N95, which offers integrated GPS functionality and a 5 megapixel camera.