Comes With Music Should Come With Innovation
Hello Symbian-Guru readers, Olly here with a special opinion piece. Well, really I don’t know if it’s special per se, but it is an opinion, and The Guru has kindly given me some space to talk to you all about something very near and dear to my heart: Music. As you might have seen recently, Warner Music, one of the big 4 record labels, has signed on with Nokia’s Comes With Music initiative, and also listed their music library in the Nokia Music Store.
**NOTE** This is a guest piece from Ollywompus, who periodically contributes here on Symbian-Guru. You can read more from Ollywompus by clicking here. You can read his personal blog here.
Based on the conversations that Ricky has had with Nokians, Comes With Music will essentially be setup exactly like a regular Nokia Music Store account, only with everything listed as ‘free’. Thus, signing Warner Music is the 3rd step of the 4 step process to getting somewhere with Comes With Music, the 4th being the final nail in the record label coffin, the signing of EMI. Once that happens, there is very little to stop Nokia from launching the service.
Only, I think there SHOULD be some things that will make them pause, because I honestly, truly, 100% feel that the service is not going to work out very well for them, and there is one reason why:
There’s not enough innovation there to drag people away from iTunes.
In the geeked out mobile world that this blog is a part of, we all spend a lot of time talking about (or trying to avoid talking about) comparisons between the iPhone and (insert name of phone). Like it or not (I find it unfortunate), the iPhone has become the centerpiece of mobile discussion - you can’t hardly read a review anymore without some sort of iPhone comparison being made. Similarly, when you think of (legal) digital music downloads, iTunes occupies the mind space (and presently the market share). If you talk about buying music, and you aren’t talking about buying CD’s, it’s even become common speech to simply say “grab it off iTunes”. Is iTunes the greatest service in the world? No, it certainly has its flaws. Most of the store is still largely DRM’d (iTunes Plus is not even close to a good percentage of the store), it’s app based (meaning that if you don’t have the app installed, you can’t access the store), and in the end, it’s really only designed to work with iPods (although there are workarounds for other devices, these aren’t really mainstream and easy).
So why is it, with these obvious flaws, that iTunes has so dominated the market for digital downloads? It’s simple: iTunes/iPod (think of the two in concert) offer an unparalleled double-whammy to the average consumer. You buy an iPod, you plug it in, you install iTunes. From there, it is a completely brainless process to buy music. You click “buy” and the music is downloaded and sync’d to your iPod. Easy as can be. And while other companies have come out with similarly easy solutions, because Apple got there first, they standout. To dislodge Apple shouldn’t be Nokia’s intent. But to steal market share from them should be, otherwise why bother with the enormous undertaking that is the ‘Comes With Music’ initiative? Despite the back and forth that we’ve seen on the matter, I’m not entirely convinced this is a hugely profitable undertaking for Nokia. I don’t think they are losing money, as many people have speculated, but I’m sure it’s a slim, slim margin after paying the fees that the record companies are offering.
With that in mind, I’ve been brainstorming on a few things that Nokia needs to get right, and some ways that they could innovate, that would truly make this a desirable service. In no particular order:
-Forget sideloading from an app. There’s nothing wrong with sideloading itself, and in fact it’s still my preferred method of buying an album off of iTunes even though I own the iPod Touch and could do it wirelessly. But I don’t want to install an app to browse music. Instead, I picture something entirely different: why can’t I have the iTunes store experience in a browser? And no, I don’t mean something like Amazon (which isn’t terrible), where you browse a website in the old fashioned way, and then download the music you want. I mean actual, sideloading from a browser app, perhaps something running on Adobe’s Air platform. Web apps used to be clunky and crappy (and many of them still are). But if you’ve checked out Adobe’s Photoshop Express recently, you truly begin to see how well a web app could work. Imagine being near any computer, logging into a web app, buying an album, and sideloading it to my device. If Nokia wants to start the transformation to a web company, this would be a great place to start.
-Keep it in the cloud. This is a big one, and in innovation terms would shoot them to the top of the charts in my opinion. What if that web app I mentioned wasn’t just a portal to a music store - it was a portal to YOUR music as well? Nokia’s music plans include keeping the music both on device, and on a computer, but what if, instead, the music wasn’t tied to either? Here’s the scenario I imagine: I download a song over 3G onto my phone. Great, it’s there, I listen to it, bada bing bada boom. I then login to Nokia’s “Comes With Music” web app, move to my library, and there’s the song as well. On the back-end, while I downloaded the song to my phone, a copy was also put into my ’storage locker’ as well. Forget syncing back from my phone to my computer, forget re-downloading it - it’s automatic because it’s done server side. I imagine a service where, when I buy a ‘Comes With Music’ phone, I am allotted a certain amount of cloud storage in an online music store. I have the option of purchasing more storage on the cheap as well, but most people would probably be fine with say 10-15GB (yes, there are those of us who have way more than that, but I think that the average consumer is still well below that). The final tie-in? If there is a song on my music locker that I don’t have on my phone (say one I purchased through the online store, not through my phone), there is a simple menu item in the music player that allows me to access and download on demand any of those songs. (Editor’s note - Could this be a future feature of Nokia’s recently launched Files on Ovi? There *is* a music streaming feature.)
-Improve music quality in phones. This is a big one for me. Even barring all of the other reasons that I have not gotten into using my phone as a dedicated app (the transfer process is horrible at the moment), the quality on the phone sucks. There are two things I don’t particularly like about playing music on my phone: first off, the actual sound quality is garbage compared to even the iPod, which isn’t the paragon of sound either. Secondly, if I’m listening to a track and am moving about the UI, the sound has a tendency to skip, and this is just unacceptable. If you truly want me to believe that my phone is my jack of all trades, it needs to be competent at those trades, not simply capable of the barest minimum. The only phone I have ever used by Nokia that doesn’t do this is the 5310, a dumb-phone with great sound since it uses a dedicated audio processor. If you are going to release a phone with ‘Comes With Music’ then that audio processor is simply a requirement. Oh, and a 3.5mm jack, although Nokia definitely has gotten better about that.
-Finally, do away with DRM!!!! If you can’t, then don’t bother. I mentioned Amazon earlier in this post, and I have to say bravo to them because they HAVE won my business away from iTunes, simply through the innovation of selling DRM-free music. I routinely use 4 different operating systems (5 if you want to call it ‘OSX Mobile’ on my Touch). I need to know that I can play my music anywhere, whether it’s OSX, Windows, Linux, Symbian or my iPod. If I pay for music, then I expect to own it. I have no problem paying for music, in fact I pay for it much more often then I download it illegally anymore, but if you are telling me where and how I can play that music back then I’m not buying it - I’m renting it. I personally, rather than the whole “1 year free of music” deal, would be happy to pay for my music through Nokia and know that I can take it wherever, whatever device, if I want to. The 12 months free is a great gimmick, but if at the end of that I can’t burn it to a CD, or I give it up if I switch phones, no thanks. If I can’t take those tracks I’ve downloaded to my computer and play them back in any music software, on any platform, then no thanks.
I realize that Nokia is going to launch, regardless of the ranting that I may do, but honestly even as big of Nokia fan as I am, I have zero interest in this launch. There just isn’t anything compelling enough to me to say “sure, I’ll give up my iPod Touch and use my phone”. And in the case of the sound quality issues, there are actually reasons that push me the other way entirely.
I’ve ranted a lot to people about Nokia’s lack of marketing in the U.S., and their sound drubbing at the hands of Apple’s marketing department every time I turn around. But with this initiative, it’s not the usual case where the better product is losing due to bad marketing - it’s the case where they aren’t making a better product at all, simply more of the same rehashed mp3 player territory we’ve been stuck in for years. Go hard or go home Nokia - otherwise why bother?
-Olly
This has been a guest piece on Symbian-Guru from Ollywompus. You can read more of his writings here at Symbian-Guru here and here. Olly’s personal blog is located here.
My operator Telenor has an online music store Telenor Musikk in which they do provide online browsing of contents.
The quality was quite good, but came as .aac files with drm in which it was limited to a playback of 9999 times.
Their solution provided that you could download from the phone first (.aac) and then you could download the same tracks to your computer (.wma again with drm).
I trialed their service under their pilot testing and was quite satisfied with the solution. However do download one and one song to your computer and then connecting via Windows Media Player to aquire a license for each song was not an experience I would provide anyone.
Note that however I haven’t tried it after its official launch as I strongly is against buying music with drm.
(I buy CD’s occasionally, but the DRM on this media is not that limited and with a computer you can easily overcome this.)
Errata:
I tried logging into the service now and all my previous downloaded files from my mobile are available on the web.
It seems that I can download a total of maximum 3 times of the same file. Either downloading them to a computer or a mobile phone. (Via their online / mobile portal)
The good thing is that they indeed have removed the DRM, from their files.
(Something I critized them for as the DRM solution was very bad implemented and because the tracks was quite expensive back then)
I’m really glad that they followed my advice, as I know they have regular campaigns to attract more people to their service.
The files available for the computer is at 256 Kbps which in fact is not that bad.
The files available for the mobile phone is in audio/mp4 format at a Bitrate of 93 Kpbs and a Sampling rate of 48000 Hz.
If indeed the files still have DRM on it, it would be in the form of “water marks”, something I’m not that familiar with.
In fact this is the only DRM I would allow to have on any media files I’ve bought.
A bit off topic - More related to DRM in DVD’s:
DRM in what matter forms are a pain in the …
Look at for instance DVD’s divided into regions in addition to CSS protection, Flash protection and Bad sector protection.
A normal user would just put a DVD into his player e.g in his computer and start to play.
The problem occurs when you then import DVD’s from other countries. Most players sets the region first time you insert a disc without you knowing.
Depending on the drive you can change this (Usually 4 times yourself, before the vendor can change it addtionally 3-4 times).
I’ve managed to destroy one of my DVD-roms because of this protection.
But of course after that I learned and now can easily copy DVD’s and make backup of my own purchased DVD’s without any struggle.
Back on topic:
In the end all fancy DRM’s just renders the regular users with frustration and mistrust, while those who know a bit more about the issue can manage to get around it easily.
Olly is my new hero! The online media vault is an excellent idea I hope Nokia wrote down. Having acquired Avvenue, and with the MyNokia initiatives, its easy to prove most of the infrastructure’s there.
I think Nokia’s Comes With Music will change the game, especially iPhone’s. But it must be simple and intuitive in practice, not just to use, but to function as we always with music, in a more organic way, and not all this DRM, converting, device only mess most services have provided in the past.
Many good ideas in this article. However i am sure that many of these points WERE considered by nokia when designing this service. But they probably had to scrap many of them to appease the record labels and just to get the service up and running. For example i’m sure they didnt want to use DRM. But for the sake of simplicity and time, they probably had to settle for DRM in the music just to strike a deal with the labels. Or maybe it was a monetary issue. Maybe things will change once nokia’s music service becomes more mature and/or successful. Anyway, i actually use my n95 as my primary mp3 player. I’m really waiting for the music store to launch in the USA.
@christexaport: Thank you for the praise, much appreciated!
@Roger: I think you are right about the unfortunate influence the record labels have over companies like Nokia, with the DRM factor. However, my broader point is that does Nokia really need to bother launching another “me too” service then? The launch starts to feel like an addendum, just another “oh, sure, we’ve got music too” type of feature, rather than anything innovative.
As a fan of Nokia’s products, I worry that as a company they are going to become the “Yahoo!” to Apple’s “Google” — in other words, where Google might innovate, Yahoo simply emulates. By doing that, you are eternally damning yourself to the #2 position. From a hardware standpoint, Nokia have been great innovators — the only folks in the mobile industry that have ever been able to touch the scope of how often they innovate have been Sony Ericsson (love or hate their products, they’ve always been interesting, at least up until the last year and a half or so). Now Apple comes out with the iPhone, and ties it into the alread #1 iTunes, and I feel like Nokia is just putting out a service to meet a checklist: phone, check. music, check.
The iPhone is not my cup of tea, and has a lot more flaws then the Macheads are willing to admit — but it IS innovative. I was one of the first to say “eh, just another touch screen phone”, but the UI does things that no Touch UI has done before, and is certainly more well laid out and intuitive.
Nokia needs to set itself as an innovator, not a follower; Ovi, Share, etc are just not innovative in the slightest — don’t let the N-Series be the last truly innovative things you do Nokia!
-olly
Great piece.
I definitely agree with you regarding the accecptability of a phone as a music device, as this is an area I truly want Nokia to pour money and research into. However, I believe the N81 is their best attempt at a pure music phone, as I personally think it sounds better than an ipod. Further, it is also more than able to scroll through menus and such without skipping the music, as its processor is overpowered given the normal tasks it’s required to perform.
I think that Iphone success won’t last forever, it is like when Motorola launched the RAZR V3 device. It was the most successful mobile phone ever made, but then they didn’t make anything more inovating that the V3 until now, so they are loosing costumers to other companies, like Nokia, or even Sony Ericsson, the best mobile company in my opinion, next to Nokia.
There’s an interesting new application on the Nokia Betalabs website : http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/musicpcclient. Taking into account the article above, it looks like Nokia may well have addresses many of the article writers concerns.
On the question of DRM… So as far as I understand, Comes With Music gives you 12 months of music downloads to keep. If these were DRM free it would destroy the proposition (in my opinion) because you’d just get person signing up and then sharing everything with their mates. It would be like one of your mates being a local “free” music store. You could wander around, grab what you wanted and leave. Not great business for Nokia or the labels I don’t think.
Whilst I agree with many of the points presented, what I don’t quite subscribe to (and this is a UK based opinion) is the suggested unqualified success of itunes. Sure, it is the defacto platform for many because the interface is useful. However, what I don’t think Apple has done well is convert users into buyers. This is because the pricing model, which Apple really drove, still doesn’t appeal to consumers. Sure there are downloads but they are still a large minority of overall sales.
Comes with Music is a really interesting model and I can understand why the labels are getting behind it, and dependent on the price point, I think it could appeal to many different consumers.
1) Parents who are not a little concerned about their kids downloading habits.
2) People using Limewire (et al.) who are fed up receiving content that isn’t what they thought they were getting
3) Active mobile music listeners who haven’t got sucked into the Apple cart
4) People who don’t own collections
5) People who own vast collections but can’t be bothered to digitise their CD collections
The list probably goes on but I’ve spoken enough.
In short, my feeling is that if Nokia get their pricing right they are going to have a mass market winner. Even if the product doesn’t quite deliver, consumers will forgive it it’s nuances because the basic premise of unlimited access to music for 12 months is just SO appealing. When people realise they can “fill their boots” there will be no stopping them.
Newbie
p.s. as an aside - Another bog impact if Nokia get this right is the impact this will have on the relevance of the music charts. If Comes With Music isn’t eligable for it’s downloads to be included in the charts then given time, the labels could have to find another medium within which to benchmark popularity of music.
Jul 9th, 2008 at 10:06 am
[...] glad that Olly decided to put his thoughts with regards to Comes With Music down on [virtual] paper. In my eyes, this is a service that could [...]