Good job no other streaming service chose this week to unveil itself. Oh… Anyway, ROK Mobile, a virtual mobile operator that runs on Sprint and T-Mobile in the US, has launched its own bundled music service. ROK Music will cost $49.99 a month and that will included unlimited texts, calls and data as well as unlimited access to 20m tracks. Its big sell is that this does not tie customers down to a contract and that the music access is not a premium bolt-on (it is pushing a price comparison chart that shows what rival operators are charging for access to music services that can range between $4.99 and $9.99 extra a month). Bundled deals are, of course, nothing new in subscription music, with the likes of Muve Music in the US as well as Deezer using it as a significant part of its international expansion strategy. That said, there has been concern raised in the past about the vast number of “zombie users” that arguably artificially inflate the number of music subscribers in the market – namely that they ostensibly have music access as part of their mobile package but don’t actually use it.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…