Update: We’ve just heard Pure’s music service will be called Flow Songs and will be in beta for the time being. More info coming soon.
Update: We’ve got the skinny on Flow Songs now. Check it out, and tell us what you think!
Pure, the company best known for DAB radios, is launching its own music download service tonight. We broke the news on the story last month, and since then we’ve had a good chance to mull over what might be on its way. Read on, and we’ll spell out why you should prick up your ears and pay attention as Pure moves into the cloud.
You’d be forgiven for thinking Pure is a small company, but it has enormous backing as a subsidiary of chip company Imagination Technologies, and the radio portion of its business is essentially a shop window. Most of Imagination Technologies’ work is in devices you’ve heard of, but probably never associated with Pure’s parent firm. In short, it’s got more weight to throw behind a new project like this than you’d first expect. Here’s three things we’re hoping for from the service….
1. Massive integration with existing services
Pure has more sense than to roll out another service identical to that of any of the major players, namely Amazon and iTunes. These two services operate primarily via MP3 downloads, and dominate the market.
Whatever Pure rolls out tonight, we’ll be baffled if it doesn’t have integration or compatability with iTunes and Windows Media Player, and wouldn’t be surprised if it hooked up to Spotify and Last.fm, on top of all your social networking accounts. Pure has dabbled with integrating online services with physical products too, letting its digital radio owners sync their product’s preferences to its internet radio service, The Lounge.
2. Something different to iTunes
This isn’t going to be solely an MP3 download service. Pure has already said that its service will be a “move into the cloud”, probably in a similar way to existing cloud services, which carry a locker system so you can access your music wherever you are, and on multiple devices.
Whether that will involve buying and downloading tracks, or buying them and storing them in the cloud will be in the detail of today’s announcement. However, it’s only a matter of time before download services like iTunes and Amazon these shift over to the cloud. Is Pure looking to get in there first, and provide a digital music cloud to mop up all those wanting everything in one virtual place?
3. Some interesting launch partners
The man who’s orchestrated the Pure digital music service is Pete Downton, Director of Connected Services at Imagination Technologies, who comes from a background in music, technology and business, and is a former VP of business development at Warner music. He’s got his finger on the pulse, and has been involved with Imagination Technology’s backing of UK startup Audioboo.
Downton has said in the past that what’s relevant is “how you combine networks: broadband, broadcast and community based platforms like social media that allow people to find content they have a passion for.” We think that’s a sign Pure’s move into the cloud will involve some unexpected launch partners.
Which all adds up to…
What are we going to be looking at this afternoon? From what we can tell, it’s a cloud based music service to let you access music anywhere you like, probably with in-service purchasing for tracks to own and store locally, plus some location-based targeting (gig tickets, anyone?) and a raft of social media hook-ups. What else, we don’t yet know, but we get the impression there’ll be more on top of this. Stay tuned, and we’ll bring you the news from around 5pm GMT.
