Wippit which provides a digital WMA and MP3 music download service in the UK is attempting to attract teenagers to use their service with help of the most popular gadget among teenagers - Their mobile phone. Up until now, several methods have been tried amoung music download companies including pre-paid vouchers and charging to their ISP's
broadband bill . If teenagers are willing to fork out for those expensive ringtone based text services, then why not use the same premium text service technique to pay for music downloads?
Wippit offer fair size collection of 150,000 songs with content from the major recording companies BMG, EMI and likely an upcoming third one. Most music is offered in DRM protected WMA format although some songs are also available in the legacy MP3 format. Due to their wider music selection and thus increased licensing costs, they had to up their unlimited-download subscription service from £30 to £50 per year. Pay-per-download tracks are 29p per discounted song, 49p per regular song and 79p per premium chart/well-known band song. GristyMcFisty submitted the following news via our news submit :
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"We're ahead in addressing the younger market with our SMS billing solution, a real incentive for kids without credit or debit cards not to download music illegally," said Wippit CEO Paul Myers. "It could be our 'killer app'." Making it easy for youngsters to buy song downloads could be crucial in tackling online piracy. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) last week released statistics which indicate the 12-19 age group comprises the most active of music downloaders, with the vast majority currently using unlicensed services like Kazaa. All other licensed music download stores focus on an older, more affluent market - one, crucially, with access to credit cards. Wippit offers that form of payment too. The SMS payment systems is currently only available to UK customers, though the download service is open for business in the US, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Wippit pledged to bring it to those territories too. |
Wippit have a nice approach when it comes to attracting the teenage age of music lovers. While teenagers love their texting including premium services such as those pricey ringtones and logos, it will be interesting to see if this method of paying for downloads will attract teenagers also. For the typical price of one ringtone, one could get two or more full songs using the Wippit service.
Feel free to discuss and read more about Wippit's service and other legal download services on our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: The Register
