<With blazing speeds still years ahead, most
companies plan a steady evolution in
technology. Portable MP3 players are already
available, but loading them with songs requires plugging them into a PC.
Web music experts, predicting a rapid convergence of gadgets, say cell
phones will soon come with built-in MP3 players. Qualcomm has already
begun building MP3 circuitry into its cell-phone computer chips. When
phones with the chips become available next year, consumers will be able
to zap music files onto them via their PCs.>
The Future of Web Music:
Listen on Your Cell Phone
By THOMAS E. WEBER
THE MUSIC BLARING from a van creeping along the streets of San
Diego last month sounded ordinary, but the vehicle wasn't picking up a
local radio station. It was tuning into MP3 files stored on the Web and
downloading the songs over a high-speed wireless connection.
The performance was a demonstration meant to dazzle the audience at a
conference hosted by MP3.com, but to many it represents the future.
More and more Internet companies are betting that the wireless Web and
the online music scene will collide.
Even as the music industry debates the impact of digital swap-meets like
Napster and Gnutella, the next new technology is beginning to coalesce.
Music and the Web have already melded, and eventually wireless
connections will put the Net everywhere. So, the thinking goes, digital
music will soon be everywhere, too -- cut loose from its PC anchor and
available on all sorts of wireless gadgets.
Don't plan on surfing the Web's musical offerings from your cell phone
anytime soon. The necessary high-speed wireless networks aren't available
yet. But if this vision pans out, it promises to further roil the music industry,
remaking the landscape for musicians, record companies, radio stations
and listeners.
MICHAEL ROBERTSON, CEO of MP3.com, dreams of a day when
you'll be able to listen to any song in your collection from wherever you
want. No more schlepping CDs from the house to the car or picking out
the right tape to take to the gym. With every album you own stored as
digital files on a server somewhere, you'll get instant access from any Web
connection, including high-speed cell-phone links.
MP3.com has already developed the
technology to manage all those music
collections. In January it rolled out
My.MP3.com, a free service that let users
store their CDs online. But MP3.com was
soon besieged by copyright suits, and lately
Mr. Robertson has been working to iron out settlements.
Given the turmoil in the online music world, why worry now about wireless
technologies that won't arrive for years? One reason is the automobile.
Web music won't be truly mainstream until it's easy to take your tunes on
the road. Though many fans have amassed huge song collections on their
PCs, listening to them in a car means "burning" them back onto CDs or
transferring them onto a high-priced MP3 car stereo. Wireless connections
could bridge the gap between home and car.
They might even provide some relief from the music
industry's copyright woes by creating an incentive to
use systems sanctioned by recording companies. With
systems like Napster and Gnutella, users download
music files from fellow users' PCs. No matter how fast
your Net link is, if the other users lack top-notch
connections, downloads can be painfully slow or
terminate unexpectedly.
Getting Web-based music to work dependably over
wireless connections won't be easy. Industry
executives speculate that despite "free" music's allure,
consumers on wireless connections will be willing to pay for access to
reliable, high-quality music servers. They could pay monthly fees or agree
to listen to targeted ads between songs.
UNFORTUNATELY, TODAY'S wireless systems aren't even close to
being able to handle the flood of data needed to transmit music files. Many
cell-phone users consider themselves lucky to make a call without being
disconnected. Wireless networks won't reach the necessary speeds until
the arrival of so-called 3G, or third-generation, systems. The networks are
slated to roll out in Japan next year, but the U.S. is expected to lag behind
because of the investments needed to upgrade networks.
With blazing speeds still years ahead, most
companies plan a steady evolution in
technology. Portable MP3 players are already
available, but loading them with songs requires plugging them into a PC.
Web music experts, predicting a rapid convergence of gadgets, say cell
phones will soon come with built-in MP3 players. Qualcomm has already
begun building MP3 circuitry into its cell-phone computer chips. When
phones with the chips become available next year, consumers will be able
to zap music files onto them via their PCs.
At i2Go.com, a music-technology start-up, CEO Sam Johnson believes
convergence will begin almost immediately. Today's cell-phone speeds
aren't fast enough to pull songs off the Net, but they're good enough to call
up simple Web pages. So Mr. Johnson is developing systems that would
let consumers browse song lists on the phone's screen and mark specific
tunes. The selections would be beamed back over the Net, and the songs
would be loaded onto the phone's MP3 player when the owner plugs the
phone into a PC.
Savos, based in New York, will begin testing
an audio service later this summer that doesn't
require a wireless Net connection. Users
select audio programming from the Web and
dial a special number from their cell phones.
Computers at Savos pull the audio files from
the Net, then play them over the standard cell-phone connection.
Even if it does take a while for wireless technology to catch up with the
demands of music, MP3.com's Mr. Robertson isn't worried. "There are so
many people working to solve this problem that I have every confidence
this is one technological hurdle we will clear," he says.
WSJ-July 10.. |
