Mobile network Orange today revealed its new mobile music strategy: new handsets, partnerships with bands and promoters, new download deals and a bunch of other stuff.
They let you book priority tickets for gigs, remix tracks and make your own ringtones, and there's even a deal with dance gurus Faithless to release a branded phone. There's more in press releases here and here if you're interested.
It's also the first time that mobile downloads are being included in the Official Download Chart (something that "3" music downloads, for example, can't claim).
This morning I went along with Charles Arthur of the Independent to give the Orange execs a grilling, and very enlightening it was too.
Orange's head of music, Mark Ashford, said that there were more than 1 million active users of the network's OrangeWorld Music service - and with a little prodding, they came up with the figure of 50,000 music downloads a month. That's not exactly on a par with iTunes (Apple claims around 1.25 million sales a day worldwide), but it's hardly small fry.
We talked a lot about whether there was space in the market for mobile networks with Apple's dominance in online music sales. They were keen to stress that iTunes was not a rival (after all, if Motorola ever produces its iTunes phone, it could well be picked up by Orange) but despite claims that "at the moment they are different products for different markets", observers could ask themselves where the mobile music market can go.
Although Orange's content seems fairly strong, the ultimate problem in the UK is going to be price: why pay £1.50 for a music download that you can only use on your mobile when you can pay 79p for an iTunes download that is -whatever its other flaws - more flexible?
"We saw the value in being mobile," said Julian Diment, head of partnerships for Orange UK: the premium is paid because you can download it anywhere. "This is a stage on a journey. We've take a genuine look at what music means to our customers and we're giving them something special, something different."
Fine words butter no parsnips, however, and the question must be whether that premium is worth it. And it will be the consumer who makes that decision.
