Zvooq launches full function free mobile music streaming

Moscow – Russian music service Zvooq, part of the holding Dream Industries, changes the game for music streaming by introducing a new model of music listening, becoming Russia’s only fully free legal music service.

From January 20 Zvooq allows all listeners to select any song, album or compilation, and then listen free of charge without time constraints. The service makes audio content available for free to users by delivering intelligent in-stream advertising. During the test period of this new model users have listened to more than 5 million minutes of music.

On 20 January music service Zvooq introduced a new type of listening to its users. It now works in two modes – freemium (free) and premium (extra charge with extended functionality).

Freemium mode provides full access to Zvooq’s music library, including more than 20 million tracks from 25,000 labels and more than half a million artists. Other freemium music services offer limited functionality listening with either ‘radio mode’ or ‘shuffle mode’ (random play). Zvooq allows broad interaction and functionality for listeners, including listening via the Zvooq mobile phone application. A user can select and play any song or album (music on-demand), skip tracks, fast forward or rewind, as well as build their personal collection and create playlists for sharing or later listening from any personal device without restrictions on quantity or time.

Premium mode – the paid version (150 rub. per month) allows users to store their favorite music on their phone for offline listening while travelling or to save on mobile data traffic. In addition, subscribers to premium mode Zvooq + do not receive advertising and can experience Zvooq at the highest possible sound quality, buy discount tickets for concerts and other special offers of goods and services related to music and music lifestyle.

Updated Zvooq mobile applications are available in the App Store, Android Market and Google Play. The total amount of free music listened to by users through mobile applications and the Zvooq site during the testing period of this new model has already amounted to more than 5 million minutes.

“A mass consumption music service should be free to the consumer,” says CEO of Zvooq Mikhail Ilyichev. “Most music listening is background listening while we go about other activities – and mostly this listening is free. We have all long been accustomed to free solutions, not just through audio piracy, but via a full range of legal channels: music given to legal digital platforms – music channels and radio, but also online services such as YouTube – is in free circulation and is unlikely to ever be withdrawn from them.”

“In order to create a working model that can bring more money to artists and other market participants, we have assumed certain risks,” – says content director Zvooq Michael Konstantinov. “Individual rights owners still believe that restrictions on access to music in terms of time, scope and freedom of choice will force people to pay, and because they include several restrictions of license agreement conditions in this respect we have to subsidize our users’ listening to some extent. We expect this year to prove the viability of our vision to establish an effective alternative to piracy and completely change the rules and approaches to the distribution and monetization of online music.”

“Russians have already formed the habit of listening to music online without downloading – tens of millions of people in Russia listen to music online each month. Now we are able to fully realize this commercial potential,” said Stanislav Tushinskiy, General Director of the online audio advertising agency Unisound. “Audio advertising is the key to creating a successful economy around online music. It allows music services to become profitable, while continuing to provide listeners with basic free access to content. The opportunity to listen to free music attracts mainstream users, while allowing the music service to monetize this user activity. This represents a major shift in the business model, enabling monetization of all music listeners, including students and other demographics who have traditionally been extremely challenging to reach. This is dramatically different from the limited approach of subscription services who address a small part of the overall audience that is ready to pay for listening on ‘high-end smartphones’. We are able to build accurate profiles of the listening audience and then offer them targeted promotions and advertising that feels very natural and relevant. Combining our technology with Zvooq’s new service is creating a profitable new economy for the music business in Russia.”

• Zvooq.com is an ecosystem of music services, developed since 2011, with a catalogue of 20 million tracks from 25,000 labels and more than half a million artists. It is the only independent company in Russia which is working to develop legal music services online, acting as an intermediary between listeners and rightsholders, and aims to offer mass consumer access to online music while reducing levels of piracy, developing business models to achieve this. Today Zvooq has five million registered users, and the company itself offers not only b2c but also b2b2c solutions for mobile operators, original equipment manufacturers and even online retailers. As of today the combined volume of investment in Zvooq has reached $20 million.

• Unisound is Russia’s first seller of digital audio advertising. The company was founded in spring 2014 to focus on the market for digital audio advertising in Russia and the CIS. Unisound brings together in a single ad network leading music services and Russian-language online media channels, including music on social networks, specialist music services and popular online radio stations. The total audience for these media already exceeds 15 million unique users. Together with its large audience reach Unisound offers targeting opportunities, which significantly increase the effectiveness of advertising. The company’s fundamental tasks include demonstrating to advertisers and participants in the advertising marketplace the effectiveness of audio ads, pioneering a set of shared standards across the market, and developing partnerships with all online media channels which feature audio content. Unisound provides internet services and media channels working in the online music space with effective tools for monetisation and for attracting advertisers to their content, whilst at the same time cleaning up the online music space and creating a legal alternative to sites hosting pirated content. In 2015 the company is releasing audio ads on all mobile platforms.