It is refreshing to read that the next frontier for digital music is not a tablet or phone but the car and the TV, as the New York Times declared on Tuesday.
One reason for the statement is that BMW’s Mini USA may soon offer the Mog music streaming service. Mog is different from Pandora, which lets you create a radio station tailored to your likes. Mog is true on-demand music streaming from the cloud, currently for only $5 a month.
Mini drivers will be able to plug in a smartphone and the Mini’s digital display will then control the Mog service. The phone provides the Internet access to Mog, but all the controls are in the dash, says the Times.
Details of the Mini/Mog deal are expected to be announced March 14. Mog sent out a press invite Tuesday stating it will announce its “automotive expansion efforts” and it will demo Mog on a Mini USA vehicle. It will also expand into TV with partners LG, Samsung, Sonos and Vizio, said the company.
In addition to on-demand music, Mog also offers custom radio stations for music discovery. And there’s a $10/month version that lets you download and keep songs even while you’re offline.
Mog’s founder David Hyman is the former CEO of Gracenote, whose music sorting software is found on many car stereo products from brands including Pioneer and Ford.
Hyman says the car could be digital music’s biggest opportunity. “The car is the holy grail,” he told the Times. “I look at the satellite radio market in America, with 20 million subscribers, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t be at 20 million subscribers.”
Mog gives you access to over 10 million songs through an app for the iPhone and Android phones. It claims to be the easiest music subscription service to use.
Mog doesn’t say how many subscribers it has. Another subscription service, Rhapsody, has about 750,000 subscribers and Mog’s users are estimated to be much fewer.
Source: The New York Times and Mog
