AT&T Wireless recently announced a new music recognition service that will enable customers to use their mobile phones to identify music they are currently listening to. By entering “#ID” on the keypad and placing the phone near the source of the music, the service will send a text message with to the phone with the title & artist of the music playing. It’s not clear from the announcement how inclusive the service is with respect to musical genres, but I know that there have been many times I’ve agonized over my inability to definitively identify a song; I’m just not sure how often I’d be willing to pay US$0.99 to relieve that frustration. If only there were a “#ERASE” service that would allow me to clear my mind of a tune that just won’t quit playing on my “internal” speaker …
I find it odd that there is no mention of some kind of accompanying service through which a mobile phone user, upon receiving information about the music they are listening to, can conduct some kind of impulse transaction to acquire that music in some way, shape or form. This is especially surprising given the other music services offered through AT&T Wireless. Perhaps other services for [legal] serendipitous discovery and acquisition of music already exists. Mikael Wiberg‘s FolkMusic prototype provides one glimpse of how this might work.
MusicPhone, with whom AT&T Wireless is contracting to provide the service, also offers a MusicCall service, through which, for US$1.50, you can “dedicate” a song — sending an audio clip of a song prefixed by your own message — to another mobile phone user. I’m not sure whether the recipient incurs any charges upon receipt of this “gift”, but this may affect its appeal.
I can imagine a new kind of radio station for “dedication on demand”, where the dedication could be heard by far more people, and perhaps therefore warrant a higher premium. In fact, perhaps the dedication slots could be auctioned off (with very high rates being fetched on, say, February 14). I’m reminded of a story I heard yesterday on NPR regarding eBay auctions for 10 minute meetings with Hollywood executives (more details on the auctions can currently be found here, and a text-based report on the phenomenon can be found here).