Customer focussed music service

OK - this post is probably a bit self-serving (more than the rest, I hear you ask?)

Yesterday we launched a fantastic extension to the Telecom Mobile Music service. Now any song that you download on your mobile, you can also download a copy to your PC. PC file is WMA so will play on a variety of Plays for Sure devices. The usual industry rules apply (Up to 3 PCs, 3 Offline devices and 5 CDs)

Here's why I like this...

1. A customer only has to make a single purchase to be able to listen to a track pretty much anywhere - online or offline. No other music store in NZ comes close to this

2. It's a really powerful step towards 'listen to your music where you want'

3. It ensures that the files are optimised for the best listening experience on whatever device you're listening on (ie Mobile file is compressed for rapid delivery, PC and Media Player files are 128k industry standard)

4. Even though we've had to go with industry standards on numbers of PCs, devices, CDs etc, as long as you maintain your mobile number (and keep a copy of the song) you will ALWAYS have the right to play that song. Can't think of many other systems with that power.

I'm sure we'll get lots of questions about why it won't play on an ipod. Would love to be able to deliver this - pity Apple aren't up for that.

Congratulations to the team involved in delivering this enhancement - it's taken a lot of persistence but they've made it!

Of less direct customer interest, but of significant future value, is the fact that you can now access these services online using a customer ID based on your mobile number (ie don't need an xtra account). You'll see more services coming out like this. CallerTunes was re-launched with this capability which means you can now search for Tunes on your PC, order them, have them set-up and then charged to your mobile. That to me is convergence - making stuff easy for customers.