Orange has confirmed that its new Monkey music service will make use of Blyk's mobile marketing messaging tech.
Monkey was just announced tonight: it's an unlimited music streaming service aimed at 16-24 year-olds, where they dial in to listen to playlists with a voice call, rather than streaming music over the network.
The service is free to users, but it seems there'll be a mobile advertising element too. Orange's announcement of Monkey includes a sentence promising "great offers from relevant brands" delivered direct to users' phones.
The obvious implication is that Monkey will in some way tie in with another Orange deal announced this week, with adver-MVNO Blyk. Orange UK's director of Pay As You Go Pippa Dunn (pictured) has confirmed that this is the case to Music Ally.
"We will use the Blyk functionality with this service," she says. "We're in the process of working out how that manifests itself."
Meanwhile, Rob Wells, SVP of digital at Universal Music Group, says Monkey won't suffer from only having one label partner - his own.
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"In our experience, other major labels are not necessary to make this work," he says, citing the example of Bouygues Telecom in France, which has signed up two million people to a similar service, despite only offering songs from UMG artists.
