MUSIC AS A SERVICE
Hello. It’s Fred Here and today we are going to talk about the one thing that everybody likes. That is Music, Just like for the Video on Demand, i’m going to talk about the Music streaming services available in Kenya, The best one to go For including their key features.
Music streaming services are not popular in an african country like kenya. Most Kenyans prefer getting music from free sites online or sharing via Xender or share-It among each other. This is because the idea of having to use your data and listen to songs online and also paying for them is hectic to most People. All in all, some people like going clean and getting the songs genuinely, at least appreciating the hard working artist who keep our heads bumping.
Not to waste time lets have a look at some of the popular music streaming services.
THE SERVICES
Please not that some of the mentions here are not available in Kenya. i’ll be specifying as we go on.
The common ones are
- Apple’s Itunes (Available)
- Google’s Google play Music (Not yet available)
- Amazon’s Amazon Music(Available)
- Deezer(Available)
- Spotify(Not Available)
- Safaricom’s Songa (Available)
- Tecno’s Boom Player(Available)
Of course Safaricom is the new local service trying to find its places and lure people into such platforms. And many might be shocked why Google play Music is listed as ‘not available’. The app may be available in every single android device but the actual streaming service is not available, it only pays locally stored music in your device memory.
There are other music streaming services but the mentioned ones are the ones that are more dominants in the world and Kenya.
MAKING THE CHOICE
After looking at the services you must be asking, which one do i go for? Well there are a lot of factors that one might consider before subscribing or using one. The factors include;
- Free trial availability – Some people don’t prefer to buy as they listen, they alternatively prefer to subscribe either Monthly, semi-annually or annually. Most music streaming medias have the two option or atleast one. Apple’s iTunes has the option to buy songs and album as prefered. Once the song or album is bought one can listen and download the item actress all supported platforms. The same can be said about google play music which is incorporated with googles playstore to buy songs, and users can also subscribe.
- Download feature – Well being in a continent where internet isn’t cheap your first concern is if you will be able to use the apps offline. The good news is YES, most of the services i have used personally have the ability to download the songs and listen to them anytime even without an internet connection. This i can not say for all but atleast a good number of the apps do it.
- Content suggestion – well this is obvious isn’t it, you expect all the services i have talked about to be able to suggest you contents depending on the kind of genres you listen to, looks like a simple option but this is how I have come to discover many songs i i like and had no clue existed.
- Option to buy – We all know paid subscription means you basically don’t own the album or song. This goes even for movies and tv subscriptions even games (yes you can stream games now, talk for another day). With the option to at least buy a song or album, the service grants you full ownership of the content meaning you don’t have to keep paying every month to listen to it. It’s a little costly as compared to subscription but has big merits
CONCLUSION
Well after all the stuff written here it all comes down to the consumer to choose what suits them.
TECH CAFE 