BlackBerry maker RIM has launched its own social music service, BBM Music, which will be integrated with the company's BBM communications service.
According to a post on the Official BlackBerry Blog, the BlackBerry-only service will be available "later this year." Users can sign up for email notifications in the meantime.
RIM gave an overview of what BlackBerry users can expect from the service in a press release, posted at Engadget.
The service costs $5 per month, and users can store up to 50 songs in their BBM library. You can also swap out 25 of these songs for new songs each month.
RIM hopes that the service's social component will make up for the limited library BBM Music allows. Users can connect with their BBM contacts to share their (albeit, limited) library and discover new music.
"You have access to all of the music on each of your friends’ BBM Music profiles, so theoretically your selection could extend way past the original 50 songs," TechCrunch points out. "It could also remain at 50 songs if you can’t learn to play nice with others."
"More than 45 million customers already love the social communication benefits delivered through BBM and we are thrilled to be extending the experience into a uniquely social and interactive music service," RIM President and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said, according to the company's press release. "We have partnered with leading music companies to provide a „full track‟ music sharing and discovery experience that will provide users with quality music on demand and allow them to connect with friends on a whole new level."
But not everyone's convinced the service will take off.
The reason people flock to cloud music services like Spotify, Rhapsody (which has its own BlackBerry app), and MOG is because they can listen to pretty much any song whenever they want. No limits. No rules. [...] And Spotify has the best deal of them all. For the same $5 per month you'd pay for BBM music, you can get all the on-demand music you want, ad-free.
A limited beta of the service is currently available in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. When the full service launches it will be available in Australia, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Are you a BlackBerry user? Are you excited about this new service? Weigh in via our QuickPoll (below).
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