MUMBAI: Vodafone UK will roll out its MusicStation by December, giving its customers unlimited access to over a million tracks from all the major record labels, as well as leading independents, on a range of new handsets. Through an exclusive agreement with Omnifone, the UK based mobile music company, Vodafone will roll out their MusicStation, giving customers the ability to download tracks from Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music Group direct to their handsets, even while on the move. Customers will be able to sign up for unlimited downloads from MusicStation for ?1.99 (US$4) per week. The MusicStation service will be accessed through Vodafone live! on a wide range of music handsets.
MusicStation customers will be able to build a music-based social network by receiving gig news and dates, messaging their friends and sending recommended tracks using ?‹?“collaborative filtering?‹?“ and ?‹?“nearest neighbour technology?‹?“ to identify new tracks and artists others are likely to be interested in, says an AP report. Downloaded MusicStation tracks and user playlists are stored centrally so that if a customer?‹?“s mobile is stolen, lost or upgraded, the replacement handset will automatically restore the customer?‹?“s music, playlists, friends and preferences the first time MusicStation is switched on.MusicStation automatically stores a customer?‹?“s favourite tracks on the phone?‹?“s internal or removable memory. Whilst some phones can store thousands of tracks, others store less than one hundred. MusicStation maximises the capabilities of any mobile phone using unlimited downloads from the network to provide access to any of the catalogue at any time. MusicStation?‹?“s technology also ensures that the memory allocated on the phone is always used to store the customer?‹?“s favourite and about-to-be-played music. This means that users can listen to their favourite tracks when in Flight Safe mode and have unlimited access to the full catalogue when connected to a 2.5G or 3G network, says the report.