MOG: A First Look
I'll be writing a longer post tomorrow morning that includes my interview with MOG.com CEO David Hyman. But before today gets away from me, I wanted to share a few first impressions of the MOG $5 per month unlimited streaming music service that launched today:
- MOG is more than a streaming service It combines social networking, playlists, blog content and music.
- You can be as passive (like Pandora) or active (like Napster or Spotify) a listener as you want to be.
- High sound quality. Streaming at 320kps. I believe that is a higher bit rate than any other streaming service.
- Nice interface. Like anything new that's trying to do a lot, it may take some time to figure it all out, but overall a stellar experience.
- 1 Hour Free Trail. It's nice that you don't have to give up credit card info, but how can the average fan decide if they like MOG an hour? After the hour, you can get 7 days free with a card, but still…
- Europe is next. Look for the UK and then more of the EU by the beginning of Q2 2010.
Check out the first impressions of Hypebot readers here and add to the discussion.
Share on:
I went ahead and bought a six month subscription. I think at this price you can’t go wrong. A good catalog of tunes, and I am very much looking forward to the iPhone app. I just hope it’s sustainable at this price.
Spotify Premium = 320kbps ogg vorbis -q9, so better than MOG’s 320 kbps MP3.
The sliding scale (artist only <-> similar artists) in the pop-out player is an incredible discovery feature. That alone has got me hooked as of this morning.
WOW! Just got done using the free 1 hour trial period. This thing is incredible. Its the perfect marriage of all the popular streaming services and its only $5 per month. I wish could search more than 1 artist (jimi hendrix, lil wayne) and put them in the same que. The sliding scale for similar artist is definitely the killer feature.
I found a fair amount of gaps in available repertoire, especially with electronic music and some of the more obscure 80’s stuff that I like. I do like the playlist feature a lot, it’s like building a mixtape you can share with other subs. I hope they stay aggressive on the licensing front – also, how will they handle new releases each Tuesday?
I’d like a playlist made EXCLUSIVELY from new releases in genres I specify – so every Tuesday, I’d get a radio station of stuff to sort thru. I imagine other users might make these, it would be interesting to see what MOG does themselves.
This sounds very interesting. Be good to see how Spotify will compete in the US and if MOG can jump into Europe and pick up some market share.
The model is meant to work for Spotify in the higher funnels but how will MOG undercut them interms of monthly sub costs?
The majors already have there hands in the honey pot with Spotify – Is this the same for MOG?
D
How does it compare next to BestBuy’s Napster streaming service which also works out to $5/mo. but includes 5 MP3s/mo.?
Bruce – you haven’t posted anything on your interview with David Hyman yet, correct? I’m very curious to see if you spoke to him about MOG’s economics. While $5/month might be the price point that gets many consumers on board with subscription, is it really sustainable? It just seems so low when you think about the number of times songs will be played vs. resulting licensing fees…
Since MOG’s layout encourages users to actually spend time on the site, maybe they can integrate more advertising into the content (not audio or on the player itself)?
Great question Steven and I will try to get the answer.
As great a service MOG is I hav a friend in the know and he says the claim of streaming @ 320 is false. A good number are streaming at 256 and some even at 128. My hope is they are in the process of upgrading all of there stream sources to 320 (so it sounds top notice when I stream through my home audio system. Buttt I have a feeling when they claimed streaming @ 320 they were doing so with a wink and a nudge – wellll technically we didn’t lie – we are streaming @ 320, just not for all songs. Come on guys!