If music subscription services are the future of the record business, then mobile apps will be the gateway to the future. These apps will need to provide excellent listening experiences that are worth paying a monthly fee. It may be the services’ greatest challenge yet.
Subscription apps have improved through the years by reimagining the services’ PC experiences without being overly complicated. Services are also creating other apps that enhance, or lead to, their core product. These mobile successes are important: Customers who pay for mobile access provide the lion’s share of subscription revenue.
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Rdio does its best to maintain the simplicity and elegance of its Web service without burdening the mobile app with too many buttons and features. “We try as much as possible to maintain feature parity with the Web,” director of product management Chris Becherer says. “There may be some features you see on the Web first, or there may be some features you see on mobile first. In general we try to march forward together as much as possible.”
Rdio keeps its app simple. It offers all the basic features of the Web service without requiring much effort to perform different tasks. The home screen is Heavy Rotation, a list of popular albums in the user’s network of friends. A drop-down menu takes the user to recent activity, Rdio’s charts and new releases. Rdio has pared down the app by leaving out most of the social features found on the Web version.
Rhapsody’s mobile app is getting a makeover. An upcoming feature called Replay learns what music the listener enjoys at particular times and replays that music when the time is right. The feature provides one-click access to music for certain situations: e.g., driving to work, having a weekend party, exercising in the mornings. The feature is tied only to the mobile app.
Rhapsody is also working on a car mode that allows for a “lean-back” experience that contrasts with the in-depth experience one can get from the Web version and normal app experience. Senior VP of product Paul Springer says the car mode will prioritize voice search, provide programmed stations and add a collection tool to easily save a song to one’s catalog. The driving-friendly mode, expected to be out this year, allows the listener to perform common tasks while concentrating on driving.
Rhapsody has created other mobile apps to add value to its ecosystem and drive demand for its music service. One is SongMatch, a music identification app in the vein of Shazam and SoundHound that launched in December. Subscribers benefit from SongMatch’s integration with the subscription service. Non-subscribers, who far outnumber subscribers, are brought closer to the service without having to download and subscribe to the full-blown Rhapsody service.
The just-released Rhapsody Concerts app is the company’s other standalone smartphone app. Concerts is similar to Songkick and Bandsintown, apps that provide online concert listings and connect people to local shows by their favorite artists. “There are way more concert-goers per year in America than there are Rhapsody subscribers,” Springer says.
Concerts is just as simple to use as Rhapsody’s app for its subscription service. It has only four areas for content: Popular, Concerts, Venues and Featured. Popular is a list of popular concerts within a particular radius (the default is 50 miles but the user can change the radius). Concerts provides a lengthy list of shows in the user’s area. Venues is a list of places within the set radius. Featured highlights tours past (Lollapalooza 1991) and present (Electric Daisy Carnival, Sasquatch, Maryland Deathfest).
While Concerts is available to non-subscribers, Rhapsody subscribers get the added benefit of accessing the service’s vast catalog. When a concert-goer browses local concerts and finds an event of interest, the Concerts app will link to the event’s artist on Rhapsody. Not only is this a good way to listen to favorite artists, it also allows the user to preview unfamiliar acts that have upcoming concerts in his or her area.
Springer wants Rhapsody to eventually be a “passport” for music fans’ musical lives. “Membership has its privileges, and that includes being able to listen to music anywhere, any time in the concert context, at work, at home, in the car.”