RIM's BBM music service to cost Australians $5 a month

Brenton Currie
Friday, 26 August 2011 15:19

Your IT - Mobility

Research in Motion has revealed its Blackberry Messenger Music service will cost Australians $5 per month when it launches locally later in the year.

The service will allow Australians to stream over the Internet to their BlackBerry devices songs from the Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI.

Up to 50 songs can be added to a users profile, with 25 able to be 'swapped' or exchanged for newer songs each month. However, the more friends users gain on the service, the more songs they're able to listen to by visiting their friends profile pages.

'More than 45 million customers already love the social communication benefits delivered through BBM and we are thrilled to be extending the experience into a uniquely social and interactive music service,' Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion said in a statement.

RIM says each song will be a complete track, and all music will be available offline meaning users can access the songs wherever they go. It'll also work well in Australia, where streaming songs constantly over a 3G network could quickly add up in terms of costs for users.

Social interactions will also be in-built into the service in a bid to maintain and grow user interactions with one another '” amongst other features, users will be able to compete in mock charts listing who has the most songs listened to.