Peter Wilson
Sun
The sounds of the likes of Sarah McLachlan and The Mediaeval Babes from Vancouver-based Nettwerk Records can now be heard on Palm Treo 650 smart phones from Bell Canada in the first music deal that Palm has made in Canada.
As well — Palm Canada and Nettwerk, an independent label, announced Tuesday — users of the LifeDrive Mobile Manager will not only be able to hear music from artists like Barenaked Ladies, Swollen Members and The Be Good Tanyas, they’ll also be able to download videos of Nettwerk groups.
Nettwerk general manager Brent Muhle said that the music deal was an opportunity to get the company’s artists heard by people who might not otherwise know about them.
“We tried to create a playlist that was representative of a bunch of different demographics,” said Muhle. “So there’s a little bit of something for everybody.”
Palm’s initial foray into music in Canada is also all for free — helping Palm to exhibit the versatility of its products as well as getting the Nettwerk Records acts exposures to a new audience, said Michael Moskowitz, general manager, Americas International, Palm Inc.
The users of the Treo 650 and the LifeDrive have been generally defined demographically as “over 25 years old, frequent Internet users and optimistic about new technology and entertainment vehicles.”
“We really want to show off our technology and how great it is, that it’s more than just a connected organizer and a smart phone,” said Moskowitz in an interview. “And the second part is that we really want to highlight great Canadian artists and both of those are very powerful.”
The tunes, which will come in MP3 and will not be copy protected, can be downloaded from the Nettwerk site (at www.nettwerk.com/palm) by those who got their Treo 650 through Bell or by all LifeDrive owners.
Videos will come in Windows Media and Real Player formats.
In order to get access to the music and videos, Palm users have to type in the serial numbers of their devices.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
