News
O2 and Sony BMG launch artist-based content stores
Tim Green Aug 7 2008, 4:40pm
SONY BMG and O2 have unveiled the UK’s first artist-orientated music stores.
The collective offering is called My Play, and will be available exclusively through O2 Active. My Play puts all mobile music products – videos, full track audio and realtones plus news and info – in one artist-based destination. The store is live from today with videos priced at £1.50, tones at £3.50 and full music tracks at 99p.
This is something of a breakthrough. It’s the first time a UK label has launched artist-based stores and answers the familiar complaint that portals are not consumer friendly because fans have to look in different places for one artist’s mobile products.
Users can click from banners hosted across the Active deck or from the My Play portal to go to artist microsites. The four to go live first will be Usher, The Ting Tings, The Script and The Zutons, with around three more additions every month. Purchases from the store will be chart eligible from launch.
This new offering is being powered by Momac’s multimedia publishing platform GoMedia, and took around took six months to build.
O2 already runs a full track download service powered by Napster and says that, with the addition of this new service, it expects to sell one million tracks by the end of 2008.
Ged Doherty, chairman of SONY BMG Music Entertainment UK, says: “It’s never been more important to think of ways in which best to bring the artist and consumer closer together. The exciting thing about this service is that its artist micro-sites do exactly that, and being mobile, it enables the connection to happen immediately. We’re delighted to be working with O2 on this new service, they are a company who have demonstrated a fantastic commitment to music over a sustained period of time.”
