Today is the official launch date for UBC Media's new music download service, Cliq. We've been playing, and we quite like it. But will the major selling point of this product be the biggest downfall.
It is billed as downloading music you hear on the radio, straight to your mobile phone. Cliq is available nationally on 21 commercial radio stations, with a reach of 12 million commercial radio listeners, and can be used on most new mobile phones by downloading a java application.
Once the software is running, and you have an internet connection available, you can see the last five songs played on a handful of regional and digital radio stations. In order to press the buy button, you need to have credit in your account, which you must have created online before hand, giving your card details and personal information.
But if Cliq is ever going to be an alternative to the big music download players such as iTunes, the price needs to be competitive, and the whole catalogue needs to be available to browse, rather than just five songs at a time. At the moment, Cliq is relying on impulse purchase of music, at £1.25 a track.
Cliq will be on-air from today with a high profile campaign, and from next year the impulse purchase system will be built in to certain Pure DAB radio sets. A retail campaign via Carphone Warehouse will also kick off next year.