Universal Music Group has partnered with white label mobile phone service provider SingleTouch Interactive to market a music-focused mobile phone, called MoveU Mobile…it will have ringtones and other music-related mobile content goodies.
The MoveU phone will ship with selected ringtones, but users will have the option to pay an additional monthly fee — as yet undetermined — for unlimited access to master and polyphonic ringtones. The phone will be sold later this year for $99.95 at Wal-Mart and other retail locations.
Additionally, SingleTouch will create phones branded for individual UMG artists, sold through each artist’s website, with preloaded content specific to that person. SingleTouch already has sold 7,000 units of a Hilary Duff-branded phone and is in the process of rolling out a Barbie-branded model.
NYTimes: [Even though the service only has ringtones for now] it is expected to sell entire songs eventually- once the phones are able to store and process the information, and the DRM issues are resolved.
The artist-specific phones might have some chance of success, but a general service focused on one music label is pretty lame.
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