The Music Subscription Music Service You Don't Know About

Subscription music services have been getting more and more press as the music business and their customers gradually adopt the concept, but we normally only hear about the higher profile services like Spotify and Pandora. It's true that they have the most subscribers at the moment, but did you know there's one service that's quietly crossed the million mark that very few have heard about?

Muve Music, which is a service of wireless carrier Cricket Wireless, has quietly surpassed 1.1 million subscribes less than 2 years after it was launched. It's basically an unlimited music service that's tied to a pay-as-you-go mobile phone service. It offers no apps for personal computers or tablets, and is only offered on Android phones.

What's particularly interesting is the demographic that Muve Music caters to. Most of its users don't own a computer or have a credit card. That means they'd never be a user of one of the other services anyway.

It just goes to show that there's always a sub-market to be served, even though it may not get much attention. That's pretty much the way music works these days. Even superstar artists have their own niche that they cater to, and any artist can have a career within a narrow category.

That's the key to being an artist in Music 3.0. Find your niche and play to it. It doesn't matter if you play something esoteric like Swahili polka or Manchurian jazz, there's a market out there for what you do. The trick is to find it. Luckily that's easer than ever thanks to social media. Stay tuned for more on how it's done.

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