Music Service to the Masses Mog Station
Hyman will be introducing the new mobile functionality to the service. This is a significant step for MOG and could be a turning point in the service’s success. Users have had to use Mog Station streaming music on their computers until now. This is fine for casual listening at home, but users now want mobile, as we have seen with the success stories of Pandora’s mobile versions. MOG today unveils this. For my notes, please see below.
The talk was opened by Hyman, who provided background information. The editorial-based MOG Music Network site, hosted at whats fido, reaches 16 millions unique visitors per month. Mog Station All Access, the streaming music service, was launched by the company in December. It costs $5 per month for unlimited streaming music. It is receiving 17% conversion after its 3-day free trial, which is quite high. Hyman claims MOG is a music service that people will actually pay for. The key is portability.
MOG’s iPhone and Android mobile apps will be available in Q2. They include on-demand streaming, downloads and MOG Radio. You can also access your library and playlists. The price is $10/month.
judo first showcased its Android app. Users can stream any song as a streaming option, just like the desktop version. They can also edit playlists and view the upcoming song queue. Mog Station Radio can be tapped to create playlists or individual songs. Users can also edit their playlists and view upcoming song queues. Another cool feature is that the Android version of Mog Station Radio will allow you to voice command the artist name.
MOG then showed the iPhone application. Mog Station wants to maintain consistency between the Android and iPhone applications’ interfaces. The features of the iPhone and Android apps are identical, with the exception of the Android voice search. Both applications are currently being developed side-by-side.
label streaming functionality is great, but offline downloading is the best. This allows users to tap on any song or album they love and then choose to download it to an iPhone or Android device. This will allow you to use the app seamlessly even if your phone isn’t connected. Hyman states that while other offline services have caching, they only cache your playlists. Mog Station allows you to select any playlist or album from the site and instantly begin downloading it. Downloads and mobile web streaming will default to 64kb AAC+. However, users can choose to download 320kb/s files which would take longer. Streaming and downloading work over Wi-Fi and 3G and EDGE.
Hyman stated that Apple has historically allowed subscription-based apps that have local caching. He was referring to Spotify, which was previously approved by Apple. The App Store is not perfect, however.
Mog Station will face off against many competitors. Spotify launched apps for Android and iPhone last fall. However, the service is still not available in the US. Pandora is very popular on mobile devices. However, you can’t play any song that you want on demand. It’s free so many people will overlook that. Rhapsody has the most similarities to Mog Station, especially once it offers offline playback for its iPhone app. However, it costs $15 per month, compared to saxenda $30.