MOG, the increasingly popular on-demand music service, just announced its first hardware partnership. MOG’s users can now access the service from their Roku players in the living room. Last week, Drew Denbo, the company’s senior vice president of business development, told us that MOG believes that as Internet-connected devices like the Roku become more popular, users will finally be able to take their online entertainment options beyond the desktop and into the living room. On the Roku player, MOG users will be able to access their libraries, playlists and artist radio stations.
Pricing
Roku users who sign up for the company’s unlimited $4.99 monthly plan will be able to use the service on their devices. For $9.99 per month, these users will also be able to access the service through the web interface. MOG will also offer a free 3-day trial to Roku owners.
In addition, users who sign up for the $9.99 plan will also soon be able to use the company’s iPhone and Android apps. These apps will allow users to download songs to their mobile devices for offline playing. We got an early look at MOG’s iPhone app earlier this year. You can find more details here.
Why Are Music Subscription Services are Getting More Popular Now?
MOG is strictly a subscription-based service. So far, these services always remained in the shadow of more traditional music stores like iTunes and eMusic. Now, however, there seems to be a resurgence in interest in music subscription services. With Rdio, for example, Skype’s founders just launched a new subscription service that looks quite similar to MOG.
According to MOG’s Drew Denbo, a number of fundamental changes are driving this trend. First of all, the arrival of mobile app stores has made it easier for these services to target mobile devices and give users the option to access their music anywhere. In addition, now that some of these services are arriving in the living room (thanks to the Roku and devices like Logitech’s Squeezebox), music subscription services are getting to the point where they are more convenient to use than download services.
At the same time, though, there will always be some users who want to own their music, so subscription services aren’t for everyone, but unlike download services, streaming music services are making it increasingly easy for their users to access their music wherever they are.
