The last time we talked about an HTC streaming music service, the rumor was that HTC would launch a Spotify competitor and leverage Beats CEO, Jimmy Iovine (who also serves as Chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M) to secure contracts with various music labels to get the streaming music service off the ground. Today things have changed with rumors circulating that HTC has, or will soon, acquire MOG, which was one of the pioneering music streaming services when it was founded in 2005.
For those who don't know, MOG is a subscription based streaming music service similar to Spotify with 14 million songs in its database. Subscribers can stream MOG through a browser, or dedicated Android or iOS application, with the ability to create customized artist playlists (similar to Pandora channels) with a control bar which balances the music selection between "Artist Only" and "Similar Artist."
Since MOG has never been a huge player in the streaming music segment (the current Android install base ranges from 500,000 to 1,000,000), we assume that HTC has some pretty drastic plans to transform the service. HTC will most likely integrate MOG into the Beats brand and create a modified streaming music service which would deliver a basic free MOG subscription to HTC customers – similar to the value-added deal HTC made with Dropbox which gives HTC One customers 25GB of online storage.
We'll have to wait for official confirmation of the acquisition from HTC before we know what will become of MOG. Do you think this is a good move for HTC? Would a free MOG subscription be a good incentive for consumers to consider purchasing HTC devices?
