Mixes, Charts and User Playlists Make It Easy to Find and Listen to
Fresh Music Every Day
Includes AOL Radio with XM featuring 200 Radio Stations - Plus Tens of
Thousands of 'Artist Discovery' Stations
Today, AOL launches AOL Music Now, the first digital music subscription service offering unlimited on-demand streams and downloads of more than 2.5 million audio tracks and thousands of music videos. With the launch of the AOL Music Now service (www.aolmusicnow.com), music fans have a new place to discover, listen, download and own songs, albums and videos from one of the largest music libraries on the web. Unlike other pay per download services, AOL Music Now lets users play as many songs and music videos as they want, in their entirety and on-demand. As long as they maintain a portable tier subscription, users can access music and videos they have transferred from AOL Music Now to their PCs and compatible portable devices.
“AOL Music Now is where great music finds you. It's as simple as pushing play.”
The new service also features AOL Music programmed AOL Radio with XM offering more than 200 AOL Radio stations plus select premier XM Satellite Radio channels, the leader in satellite-delivered entertainment. Additionally, AOL is introducing powerful community and personalization capabilities that make it easy for users to discover and listen to music that is right for them.
AOL Music Now is the first and only online music service to offer unlimited music video playback and download rolled into the subscription service so that users don't have to pay for every download. Music videos are also available for a la carte purchase to subscribers and non-subscribers alike.
"With the addition of music videos and AOL Radio with XM stations, AOL Music Now has raised the bar in the digital music service space. And, with best-in-class personalization and automated discovery features, it's easy for music lovers to navigate the thousands of mixes, playlists and radio stations the service offers," said Amit Shafrir, President, AOL Music Now. "AOL Music Now is where great music finds you. It's as simple as pushing play."
AOL Music Now has a library of more than 2.5 million songs from all four major music labels and hundreds of independents. In addition, AOL has agreements with several labels, including SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, to provide thousands of music videos for use in the AOL Music Now service.
"We are delighted to participate in the launch of AOL Music Now, and we look forward to working with AOL to bring our artists' videos to music fans through this innovative new service," commented Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
The service requires no software to download and is available at www.aolmusicnow.com via a web-browser from any Internet-connected PC. In addition, the service works seamlessly with Microsoft Windows Media Player (version 10 and higher) and Winamp (version 5.2.3 and above available at www.winamp.com). Visitors have the option to browse and purchase songs and music videos on an a la carte ($.99 per track, $1.99 per video) or subscription basis from any Internet-connected PC. Subscriptions to the service are available for $4.95 per month for AOL Radio with XM, $9.95 per month for unlimited, on-demand streaming and downloading to a computer, and $14.95 per month to download unlimited songs and music videos to 'PlaysForSure' compatible music devices.
Representing the next generation of digital music services, the AOL Music Now service also offers unique personalization features, such as daily custom playlists and the ability to view and share music profiles with other visitors. User listening activity and ratings are used to provide each member with custom music recommendations and hours of fresh tunes updated daily - further empowering music fans to customize their online experience. Members have personalized home pages and can search for and view the music profiles of other members to discover new music and share playlists. A Community area featuring the hottest member playlists and biggest fans for each genre or style will help fans find music through people with similar tastes.
Visitors without a subscription can personalize, create and share playlists and purchase music. Non-subscription visitors can listen to song samples until they decide to purchase songs a la carte or subscribe for on-demand playback of full-length songs, downloads and portability to a device.
In celebration of the launch, AOL Music Now has partnered with Creative Labs to offer its members $50 off the purchase price of the ZEN Vision:M 30GB video player, photo viewer and MP3 player. Designed with a stunning, 2.5-inch, high-resolution color LCD screen, the ZEN Vision:M displays rich, vibrant digital video, and photos, full-color menus and album art. The ZEN Vision:M plays up to four hours of video on a single battery charge and can carry up to 120 hours of video, making it an ideal product to use with AOL Music Now. Members can take advantage of this offer by signing in to the AOL Music Now service and clicking on banner promotions in the Music browsing area.
AOL LLC recently launched the AOL Music Now Web Services (http://developer.aolmusicnow.com) developer site, offering tools to enable web developers, bloggers, and individual music fans to add custom feeds of artist, album, chart, playlist and other dynamic music information from AOL Music Now directly to other sites including their own email, web site, blog, or AIM Pages beta profile (http://www.aimpages.com). The site provides easy to follow instructions and documentation and utilizes standard RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication). Users can subscribe to AOL Music Now data feeds through My AOL (a compliant RSS Feed reader) or webs.
AOL Music Now LLC is a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of AOL LLC. The web-based music subscription service was acquired from Circuit City in November 2005. Offering visitors the option to purchase or subscribe to access more than 2.5 million tracks of music from the entire major and more than one hundred independent labels, AOL Music Now is now available. For more on AOL Music Now, please visit (http://www.aolmusicnow.com).
About AOL LLC
AOL LLC and its subsidiaries operate a leading network of Web brands and the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States. Web brands include the AOL.com website, AIM, MapQuest and Netscape. AOL offers a range of digital services in the areas of education, safety and security, communications and music. The company also has operations in Europe and Canada. AOL, which is based in Dulles, Virginia, is a majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.
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