Beats Music Launching Jan. 21
Last month we learned that Beats Music (fka Daisy), Beats By Dre’s Trent-Reznor-affiliated streaming music service, would launch during January 2014. Sure enough, Billboard reports that the service is set to launch next Tuesday, 1/21. Continues Billboard:
Santa Monica-based Beats will join a parade of competitors, including Rhapsody, Slacker, Xbox Music, Rdio and Sony Music Unlimited — all vying to become the dominant subscription service in the U.S., the world’s largest market for music. The stakes are even higher as the market for digital downloads showed signs of waning, declining in 2013 for the first time, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The field is likely to become even more crowded this year, with Google Inc.’s YouTube and France’s Deezer expected to launch their U.S. services in the next several months.
Beats Music intends to set itself apart from other streaming services with stylish design and human curation. Billboard notes that Sirius XM’s personality-driven stations programmed by the likes of Howard Stern have been successful, but it’s unclear as yet whether Beats is imitating that model or if something entirely new is in play. The service will cost $9.99/month (there is no free option), but promotions with AT&T and Target could give it an edge over Spotify. Sign up for Beats Music here.