Digital streaming music service MOG has recently launched in Australia, thanks to a partnership with Telstra, which allows the digital platform to deliver an impressive catalogue of 16 million tracks at a higher-quality 320kbps, putting it in direct rivarly with Spotify here in Australia.
While the digital music service sets itself up here in Australia, back at home, an interesting development has found MOG with new owners, namely headphone makers Beats; who closed a deal to purchase the MOG subscription (but not its MOG Music Network, its social media arm) yesterday.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Beats Electronics, the company founded by Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, has purchased the music subscription service MOG. In a bid to expand its branding as well as supply users with a higher-end audio product that will set it apart from competitors like Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and Geezer.
Speaking of their new acquisition, Beats president Luke Wood indicated that their plans for the digital streaming service were as much about improving the quality for its user-base as much as it was expanding their business empire.
“It’s too early I think, based on the scale of any of these services, to declare winners and losers,” said Wood. “I think the future of the marketplace is going to be defined by the greatest product and the best user experience.” As previously mentioned, MOG provides a higher streaming quality of 320kbps compared to Spotify, and even Apple’s, compressed formats. Wood remarking, “we’re committed to the best possible audio playback, and we’ll continue to invest in that area.”
Additionally, Beat are looking to revise and improve the MOG interface – including its presentation, library and ease-of-use – to further distinguish itself from its competitors. Wood acknowledged that in MOG, “we recognize the importance of the product experience… They have to be considerably better than what is available today for subscription to ultimately win at scale.”
Scale is the important factor, MOG’s paid subscribers is currently estimated in the tens of thousands, which is considerably less than Yahoo’s Rhapsody music service (which ranks at over 1 million users in America); and pales in comparison to Spotify who currently possess around 3 million paid subscriptions worldwide.
Another advantage of MOG which Beats is banking on is that its subscription based service is compatible on a number of devices, here in Australia their partnership with Telstra means it’s been rolled out on PCs, digital music players, Apple and Android smartphones, tablets, and Sonos wireless HiFi systems.
It’s an interesting move from the taste-making headphone makers. Using iconic rapper/producer Dr. Dre as the face of the proudt, the signature headphone line provides pricey, high-end cans – including celebrity endorsed lines from the likes of Lady Gaga, Sean “Diddy” Combs and even basketballer LeBron James – which have put them near the top of the audio accessory heap.
Digital Trends points out that the Beats brand has already been rapidly expanding outside of its status as the pair of headphones to own. Noting that: “Chrysler has released a car with built-in Beats integration and many HP laptops come with a big Beats button on them. The brand is so hot that smartphone maker HTC purchased a majority stake in Beats last year.”
A 51% stake in fact, at a cost of $AU 300 million to the Taiwanese cellphone maker, who have since integrated Beats audio into all of its high-end HTC devices like the One-X, as well as future devices. This in turn means that MOG may be integrated as part of HTC’s mobile service though Wood would not confirm details.
Either way, it’s another interesting development in the ever growing popularity of streaming services.
