JB Hi-Fi launches its music subscription service to the masses

David Swan
Thursday, 15 December 2011 16:43

Your IT - Entertainment

The face of music access in Australia has potentially changed forever, with JB Hi-Fi launching its new music subscription service in the form of JB Hi-Fi NOW.

 

The unlimited service comes much earlier than anticipated, and has been launched in conjunction with Vizual Jazz, a digital creative agency.

Subscribers can access a month's free trial from now, and from then on will pay $6.67 a month to access millions of songs online via JB Hi-Fi NOW on PC notebooks and Mac.

They can create mix tapes, discover new artists, browse by genre, share their music and see what others are listening too. They can also search by artist, album and song title to find their favourites, and see the most popular tunes being played.

Users can access their music from multiple internet devices and access additional information such as bios, reviews and similar artist recommendations to help users find music they will love.

From early next year, users will be able to synchronise songs to their iOS, Windows or Android phone via the JB Hi-Fi NOW app, also developed by Visual Jazz (VJ), allowing them to play their favourite tunes back even when the device is offline.

JB Hi-Fi CEO Terry Smart said the site would change the way Australians listen to and purchase music.

'JB Hi-Fi NOW is set to be a game-changer for the music industry here in Australia and will change the way we listen to and enjoy music. JB Hi-Fi, Australia's leading music retailer, is proud to bring something like this to Australian music lovers, further building on its strong music heritage and is a natural extension to our current physical music offer. JB Hi-Fi NOW is another example of our continued focus on innovation and emerging technologies' sad Terry Smart, CEO JB Hi-Fi.

'JB Hi-Fi NOW holds the license to more than ten million songs already and this will continue to grow as the site evolves. It's designed to change continuously, with further social and community areas as our next immediate focus. Visual Jazz has brought the concept to life in an amazing way, adding features that have not been seen before and there are many more exciting developments in the pipeline following the launch.'

VJ Managing Director Konrad Spilva said: 'The retail industry is at a turning point when it comes to online and JB Hi-Fi has been brave in being one of the first local majors to truly replicate one of their signature in-store experiences to a powerful out of store experience. We're lucky in the sense that they've completely trusted us to deliver on this project, which really is the way of the future for music retail.'

'There are other music sites around but none with the features and easy usability that JB Hi-Fi NOW delivers, and certainly not on a local level. It was an extensive process to develop the site and we're certainly not done - possibly the most exciting part about the site is the huge potential to keep growing it in the future.'

The site is set to rival alternatives like Spotify and Pandora, which are not currently available in Australia but will likely eventually launch here.