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Tag: mSpot

  • Samsung Acquires Cloud Media Provider mSpot

    Samsung announced today that it is acquiring mSpot, a mobile cloud entertainment provider. The purchase will allow Samsung to provide mSpot’s Movies and Music services on their phone and tablet devices. It also fits with the trend Samsung set in its announcement of its new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III. That phone will be packed with exclusive Samsung software and services. No details on the acquisition, such as mSpot’s price, have been announced.

    “mSpot shares our vision to bring a best-in class cloud and streaming entertainment experience to consumers, and they’ve backed it up with great technical solutions from a great engineering team,” said TJ Kang, Senior Vice President of Samsung’s Media Solution Center.

    mSpot currently runs two media products, both available for the iPhone and Android platforms. mSpot Music offers cloud storage and streaming for music similar to Google Music and Apple iCloud, which the company has had to compete with over the past year. mSpot Movies is allows users to rent movies for as little as $2 and stream them across nearly any device.

    “Samsung is unparalleled in terms of global reach and cutting edge devices; with our combined resources, we are looking forward to redefining media consumption across the mobile universe with cloud services,” said mSpot CEO Daren Tsui.

    Purchasing mSpot brings Samsung straight into the streaming media market and gives it the services and technology to instantly compete in that arena with Amazon, Apple, and Google. The move might lend credence to rumors that Samsung is looking to shed Google’s Android platform and strike out on its own. If Samsung were to do that, now is the time. The company has clawed its way to the top of the Android heap and recently even shipped more devices than Apple in the first quarter of 2012.

    What do you think? Is Samsung positioning itself as Apple’s main competitor? Will mSpot’s services improve Samsung’s devices in a meaningful way? Leave a comment below and let us know.

  • mSpot: We Have the “Holy Grail” of Mobile Movies

    mSpot has announced what it is calling the “Holy Grail of Mobile Movies”. In other words: instant streaming and progressive downloads. It will first be offered on newly shipping Lenovo tablets.

    “While there is growing competition for streaming movies – it’s mostly on PCs and web-enabled TV –very little downloading is available on mobile devices,” the company says. “Movie DRM for the mobile is not the same as movie DRM for PC, (companies like Amazon/Blockbuster have created their own players to solve the download problem on PC, but are unable to both stream and download movies to mobile devices).”

    Lenovo and mSpot have together developed their own DRM solutions for mobile movie downloads, using Microsoft’s PlayReady.  

    According to mSpot, it’s the only player that is able to serve the “very fragmented market” cross platform with both iOS and Android.

    “Amazon, Apple and Blockbuster boast the ability to download and instantly watch – but they are actually referring to TV shows; movies require a full download before you can watch them, (Apple states in their video tutorial, that you can start watching right away -while downloading), but fail to mention this doesn’t apply to movies,” mSpot says. “Amazon and Blockbuster have built their own DRM-enabled movie players, but users must still download the entire movie before watching.”

    The company also points out that Blockbuster used to support iOS devices, but no longer offers this.

    mSpot Competitive Matrix

  • mSpot Details Radio Spotter and Its Impact on the Industry

    As Chris Crum of WPN previously reported, mSpot recently launched a new service into beta that combines both cloud music storage and streaming with streaming Internet radio. Although there are other cloud music and storage lockers as well as streaming radio services, mSpot’s Radio Spotter is the first offering that combines the two.

    Daren Tsui, mSpot’s CEO, told us that even though mSpot Music had gained widespread popularity, the company wanted to enhance its service by allowing users to discover more music. He believes that Radio Spotter fulfills this need since users have access to more new music through the feature.

    “By looking at what you’re listening to and your music tastes from the music locker side, we can actually recommend from 100’s of radio stations, whether they’re Internet radio or stations we program, that we think are relevant to your music tastes,” he said.

    Radio Spotter is similar to Pandora but is different since it offers 30-35 commercial-free radio stations that mSpot programs on its own. In addition, users can play their own music alongside the new music they discover.

    Although mSpot knows that it has some big-name competitors on the cloud music storage side, it believes that its overall service offering responds directly to consumer needs. Tsui said that Amazon’s service felt like a “backup, generic locker.” Even though Google launched its own service and Apple is expected to do the same, he still thinks that mSpot is a promising solution for consumers.

    “We want to focus on a great music experience versus just sort of focusing on storage,” said Tsui. “The theme is very consistent – a much better music experience.”

    Radio Spotter Beta is currently available for the Android platform but will be offered on the iPhone, Mac, and PC later this year.

  • mSpot Radio Spotter is mSpot Meets Pandora

    mSpot Radio Spotter is mSpot Meets Pandora

    mSpot has just launched a new service that’s kind of like mSpot meets Pandora (without the ads). It’s called Radio Spotter (beta) and combines cloud music storage/streaming with streaming Internet radio. It will match the songs you play from your personal collections to similar music playing on hundreds of radio stations across the Internet.

    It will also instantly select Internet radio stations it thinks you’ll like, based on music genres or your own artist searches. CEO Daren Tsui tells WebProNews, “We keep track of songs played by the radio stations we’ve aggregated. We use this data to make our recommendations.  For example, you are listening to Lady Gaga using our player and you click on the radio button.  We would give you a list of stations starting with our Personal Radio (like Pandora) using Lady Gaga as the seed.”

    “The rest of the list is a combination of our commercial free radio stations and Internet radio stations that have played Lady Gaga recently,” he continues. “The more the station played Lady Gaga recently, the higher the station will be ranked on the recommendation list.”

    As far as finding new artists and music to listent to goes, he says, “It really depends on what the radio stations are playing.  As we aggregate more Internet stations, I would expect our hit rate to keep increasing even with obscure music and artists.”

    The service is not ad supported. “We make money when users sign up to our premium tier,” he says.

    mSpot gives the following bullet points for how mSpot with Radio Spotter dffers from existing music services:

    • Unlike Pandora and Slacker; Play all of your own music alongside new music
    • that is discovered on real radio stations: Your own music collection is the
      basis of all the new music you find and listen to.
    • Unlike iTunes; Store your music collection in the cloud so that you can always
    • access it, wherever you are. Your music is connected to the Internet, so you
    • can match your preferences to hundreds of Internet radio stations to discover
      and play new music for free.
    • Unlike subscription services like Rhapsody, MOG and Rdio; Listening is free.
    • Match the music you already love with music playing on radio stations all over
      the Internet.
    • Unlike Cloud storage services like Amazon or Google; Listening is not limited
    • to your own music, or music for purchase; your music now connects you to
      hundreds of radio stations.

    Initially, the service is available for Android. It’s in the Android Market. It will be coming to the iPhone, Mac, PC, and other devices later this year.

    mSpot has to find ways to separate itself from the growing competition, which is coming from some big players Amazon, Google, and maybe even Facebook, not to mention the other music-dedicated companies out there like those mentioned above and others. This is a great way to do that, at least for now.

  • mSpot Movie Rental Prices Get Cheaper as Competition Escalates

    mSpot Movie Rental Prices Get Cheaper as Competition Escalates

    When Amazon announced its Cloud Drive and music player services 5GB of storage for free, mSpot knew it had to act. The company quickly announced that it would also be giving users 5GB of free space.

    Now mSpot has lowered the pricing on its movies, to compete with Netflix, Blockbuster, Redbox, etc. as well. They are offering new releases for $3.00compared to the $3.99 industry standard.

    “We’re squarely focused on providing value to our customers and our new move is to allow our customers to watch movies on every device they own. mSpot supports 40 to 50 different mobile devices,” CEO Daren Tsui tells WebProNews.

    “We’re finding that many of our customers want to watch new release movies that are not yet available for streaming on Netflix,” he says. “We’ve always competed very well with our new release selection and we’re excited to offer our customers more competitive pricing.”

    One area where Netflix and others have a leg up is the offering of television shows. When asked about mSpot’s plans for this, Tsui told us, “We have episodic tv, but feel like we want to get movies down first before offering television series. This is something we could offer in the future though.”

    mSpot counts Disney, Paramount, WB, Universal, Sony and others among its partners.

    “Getting DVDs in the mail is old school,” says Tsui. “To sum this up. we want to pass the value to our customers.”

    Users who join mSpot’s Movies Club purchase pre-paid credits for a select number of rentals each month, based on their plan.

    The company says, “New releases on mSpot Movies are often available the day DVDs go on sale. This means people can watch these movies 28 days before subscription services like Netflix offer the same DVD, and a full 1-7 years before they are available for streaming instantly on subscription services.”

    Plans include: $4.99 a month for up to 4 movies, $7.99 a month for up to 8 movies, and $15.99 a month for up to 16 movies. Movie rentals can also be purchased a la carte from $1.99 – $3.99.

  • mSpot Prepared to Battle with Amazon, Google, and Apple in Streaming Music

    Amazon made huge waves when it unveiled its new Cloud Drive and Cloud Player offerings, which give users 5GB of free storage for their music. One of the companies immediately impacted by this, would be mSpot, which offers a very similar service.

    In fact, soon after Amazon’s announcement hit the airwaves, the company also announced that it would be giving users 5GB of free space.

    “We are breaking down the barriers to mainstream adoption of cloud music, so that it makes sense for anyone with a music collection to store it in the cloud, where it will be easily accessible on all kinds of connected devices,” mSpot CEO Daren Tsui tells WebProNews.

    “Why?” continues Tsui. “Music collections are personal. People have already invested a lot in their existing collections and want to continue to build them – if its easy for them to listen on both mobile and their computers, their music collections will become more valuable and enjoyable.”

    The immediate expansion of mSpot storage is nice, but how can mSpot expect to continue to contend with major players in this space, such as Amazon, Google, and Apple? They’re getting that question a lot, no doubt, which is why they’ve prepared a lengthy statement to answer it. Here it is in its entirety:

    How does mSpot plan to compete against Amazon Cloud Drive and then Apple and Google?

    Firstly, Amazon is offering a music in the cloud storage locker and player – and this is just one component of mSpot. We’ve had this feature out for almost a year, and in this time, we’ve learned a lot about our customers and what they really want. We’re gearing up to roll out our second phase very soon – including a new music discovery that will be completely unique to the market.

    We’re in a multi-device world. While Amazon has done a decent job of their Web player – this is obviously the easiest half of the offering. We don’t think they can compete with us on mobile for the following reasons:

    – We’re on both iPhone and Android; when people store their collections online, they don’t want to feel they’re locking down their choice of phone as well.

    – Leading mobile carriers like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have been offering our mobile entertainment services to millions of their subscribers for years, under ourwhite label.

    – Why? Our technology is truly optimized for the mobile, which has different requirements than the Web. We offer music playback that feels local to the handset, (which is very hard to do); faster syncing and streaming; continuous connectivity to your music, even when you don’t have a connection; choice in how much music to store on your phone – all are not just nice to have, they’re essential. We also offer unique features like lyrics, album art and artists bios right on the handset.

    – We believe our proven industry experience on the mobile gives us a big edge over Amazon, or even Google or Apple.

    On that note: We would welcome an opportunity to challenge Amazon’s service on mobile usability – any time.

    We’ve been out for almost a year on Android, and since December for iPhone. We have a significant lead with over 1 million downloads on Android alone. People have already taken the time to upload their collections into our service, and they love it.

    mSpot’s position related to Amazon’s pricing model in comparison to our own.

    We think we have a better service and in order to remove any price barriers we’re going to offer 5 GB free storage. Going forward, we expect that the market for storage will be very commoditized and price-driven; but unique music services like mSpot will appeal more to music listeners looking for a complete experience on both Web and mobile.

    Amazon gives you 5GB for free, then offers yearly plans at a dollar per GB at 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1,000. Google Music is expected very soon.

  • mSpot Android App Gets 500,000 Downloads in Two Months

    mSpot announced today that the Android app for its streaming music service has been downloaded 500,000 times.This is fairly impressive as the app has only been out for two months.

    If you’re unfamiliar with mSpot, it lets you upload your music files to store in the cloud, and stream them from your computer or mobile device. 

    "We speculated a year ago that the demand for cloud based entertainment would be on the rise due to the growing number of media capable devices coming to market such as smartphones, set-top boxes, tablets and PCs," says mSpot CEO Daren Tsui. "What we didn’t expect is how quickly the demand skyrocketed, as exhibited by our early organic growth just on Android."

    mSpot is now offering new features including storage options that allow users to keep up to 40 GB of music in the cloud as well as voice-activated features via Google Voice. Other new features include prioritized uploading by Artist, Album and Playlists, an option to stream music (not save on phone) to conserve SD card space, and loading songs quickly on the phone via USB sideloading.

     

    The company cites a recent survey by Pew Research, saying cloud and mobile computing will overtake PCs by 2020. "mSpot user data shows that mobile is gaining traction among users as an entertainment and cloud platform," the company says. "According to internal company usage data, those customers who have the option to listen via both Web and Mobile spent the majority of the time (83% in August) listening on mobile."

    The updated app is available in the Android Market, and to all PC and Mac users at www.mspot.com. mSpot also has a streaming movies service for Android, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Palm and over 50 other handsets.

  • mSpot: That Netflix/Epix Deal? We Get Those Movies 6 Months Earlier

    You may have read that Netflix announced a new deal with Epix worth $1 billion. mSpot has taken the opportunity to point out that they get movies much sooner than Netflix’s streaming service does, most likely including many of the same titles.

    The deal gives Netflix Epix movies, which include titles from Lionsgate, Paramount, and MGM. mSpot says it has deals in place with Lionsgate, Disney, Warner, Paramount and others. mSpot says what Netflix is paying a billion dollars for, they are getting six months earlier.

    A representative for the company provided this little timeline:

    1. Theatrical release: aka, "in theaters now"

    2. DVD release: this usually starts 3-4 months after theaters

    3. VOD: 3 months after DVD release – AVAILABLE ON MSPOT

    4. Pay TV: 6 months after DVD (HBO, Starz, Epix, etc.)

    5. Free TV: 9 months after DVD (TNT, NBC, etc.) – AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

    "A growing trend with studios including Warner and Paramount is to release ‘day and date’ movies as VOD, meaning that mSpot is getting many of the movies at the same time as the DVD release," the rep says. "The incentive for the movie studios to do this is that they get higher revenue shares from ‘day and date’ than VOD."

    mSpot Movies - Stream to iPad, iPhone

    What mSpot doesn’t have, however, is an actual DVD-by-mail service, which Netflix is obviously known for first and foremost. Netflix users have basically received acess to its streaming catalogue as an added bonus, rather than having to pay for these movies like with some of their competitors.

    Last month, mSpot, also known for its free (up to 2GB) music storage/streaming service, launched mSpotMovies for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, which lets users stream movies from these devices. Mobile users are still waiting for such apps from Netflix (though they will almost certainly be here at some point). mSpot users can rent movies for $2.99 – $3.99.

  • mSpot Launches Streaming Movie App for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch

    mSpot has announced the launch of a free app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, which lets users watch full-length streaming movies instantly.

    "The Mobile Movies iPad app makes them the first company to make streaming full-length movies available across Apple devices (beating Netflix to the punch)," a representative for mSpot tells WebProNews.

    Users can start watching movies at mSpotMovies.com on their PCs/Macs and resume watching them on their other devices, should they choose to do so.

    mSpot Movies - Stream to iPad, iPhone

    "We now truly live in an ‘entertainment anywhere’ world where consumers often own many devices to watch movies on-the-go, or at home," says mSpot CEO Daren Tsui. "mSpot Movies allows people to enjoy movies instantly and seamlessly across many consumer electronic devices without the need for cable sync or sideloading."

    The app is free, and users can rent movies for $2.99-$3.99.

    mSpot Movies is available on major U.S. carriers and across over 50 different handset devices, including the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Palm, mSpot says. The company also launched a cloud music service last month.