RIM unveils BBM Music service

Of late, there’s been a bit of chatter about it, and now Research In Motion (RIM) has confirmed details of what it’s calling its “music sharing and discovery service.”

Called BBM Music (BlackBerry Messenger Music), the cloud-based music service will cost users $4.99 a month and enable subscribers to share songs through the BlackBerry instant messaging service.

Details of BBM Music were released yesterday in a statement issued by the Ontario-based company. Users can choose from millions of songs from leading record companies such as Universal, Sony Music, Warner and EMI.

The statement explains that should you sign up, you’ll be able to build a personal music profile with 50 of your top tracks. When your BBM friends sign up, they can join your BBM Music Community. Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are then shared with members of your community. The more friends in your community, the bigger your music collection becomes, as their favorites are available for you to listen to at any time.

Users can easily discover music that their BBM Music friends are listening to and can also comment on their friends’ songs and playlists.

“Enjoy a truly social community-based music experience,” the statement implores.

A closed beta trial of the BBM Music service begins Thursday in Canada, the US and the UK.

RIM is planning for the new service to be commercially available to BlackBerry users later this year for a monthly subscription of US$4.99, in the following countries: Australia, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, the UK and the US.

Best Buy announces own Music Cloud service

It seems like everyone has their heads in the clouds these days. With a growing emphasis on synchronizing media purchases and applications on multiple mobile devices and computers, retailer Best Buy is launching Music Cloud.

The service is available for devices powered by Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry operating systems and requires downloading software that enables music streaming.

The desktop app copies libraries and playlists from iTunes on a home computer and puts them in an account to be accessed on multiple mobile devices. It's powered by Catch Media's Play Anywhere service.

"With Best Buy Music Cloud, your digital music lives in one place but you access it from wherever you are," according to the Best Buy web site. "Enjoy all your music when you're at a friend's house, in the car, on the bus, walking to work ... virtually anywhere."

"You can store your favorite songs and playlists for when you're offline," it adds. "You can select just a single song, a playlist, or even an artist, allowing you to continue listening when you don't have coverage."

The premium version is available for $3.99 and, a demo version is available with 30-second playbacks of your songs.

Best Buy's Music Cloud comes on the heels of Apple rolling out iCloud to synchronize media purchases across computers and its mobile devices. iCloud was the major announcement by CEO Steve Jobs at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this month. Google and Amazon.com have also launched cloud music services.

Earlier this month, at the E3 conference, Best Buy announced a Reward Zone Gamers Club that offers points toward purchases.