MOG (online music)

MOG

Platforms	Web; iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, Roku, Boxee Box
Format	320 or 256 kbit/s MP3 web streams and high-quality mobile downloads, 64 kbit/s AAC mobile streams
Catalogue	14 million+ songs
Availability	United States
Website	mog.com

MOG is a paid subscription online music service and blog network, where subscribers can listen to and read about music. Subscribers can play the tracks that are available in the catalog on a variety of digital devices, including computers, handheld devices, Sonos system and television. The company claims that its catalog contains 14 million tracks, although it is not clear how such count was produced or audited. MOG also allows users to access aggregated editorial content from music blogs, user posts, and in-house editors.

MOG was founded by David Hyman, former CEO of Gracenote, former SVP of Marketing at MTV Interactive, and former Director of Ad Sales for Addicted to Noise. MOG is a privately-held company headquartered in Berkeley, CA. The company has raised $24.9 million in capital from a variety of sources, including Balderton Capital, Menlo Ventures, Simon Equity, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music. Famed music producer Rick Rubin is a member of MOG's board of directors.

History

Founded in June 2005, MOG began as a music-themed social network and blog network. Users could create profiles with information about their music tastes, and the now-discontinued MOG-O-MATIC client application assisted in the process by scanning users' music libraries and populating their profiles with information about their music collection and listening activities. MOG would also recommend users with similar music tastes, and users were able to compose blog posts, read posts composed by other users, and listen to 30-second samples of songs.

In late 2007, MOG partnered with Rhapsody to allow Rhapsody subscribers to access all of Rhapsody's content through MOG.

In August 2008, MOG launched the MOG Music Network, a music ad network that aggregates posts from affiliate blogs and those created by MOG's in-house music editors.

In December 2009, MOG launched its own subscription music service, which allows subscribers to stream any song in MOG's catalog on-demand to their computer through their web browser. In July 2010, MOG released mobile applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phones, allowing subscribers to also access MOG's catalog from these devices. In September 2010, MOG announced the release of a Roku channel, which enables subscribers to access the service from their television.

Features

MOG's Web Player

MOG is a subscription service that allows users to play tracks from its catalog on a variety of digital devices, including computers, handheld devices, Sonos system and television (through MOG's Roku channel). The company claims that its catalog contains 14 million tracks, although it is not clear how such count was produced or audited. Subscribers can play songs available in MOG catalog on a computer through a web browser; on mobile devices through MOG applications for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android; via the Sonos system, and on television through MOG channel on the Roku Digital Video Player, Boxee Box. As of October 2011, a MOG app for Squeezebox is in testing. Users can stream songs from the catalog via the internet and also store such songs on their devices, so that they can be played later without internet connection. In terms of audio quality, web streams are 320 or 256 kbps mp3 files and mobile streams are 64 kbps AAC files. Users choose whether mobile downloads are 'high-quality' 320 or 256 kbps mp3 files or 64 kbps AAC files.

MOG Radio, accessible through any of the platforms mentioned above, generates a continuous play queue based on the artist chosen by the user. By adjusting a slider within the MOG player (pictured at right) between Artist Only and Similar Artists, the user determines whether the radio plays only songs by the selected artist, or whether and how often songs by what the application determines to be "similar artists" are added to the queue. When the user's song selection ends, MOG Radio begins to play and continues until the user makes another selection.

Three different subscription plans are available as of February 2012. A FreePlay allows users to use MOG on the internet(not mobile or TV), and a $5/month plan allows users to access MOG through the web and through the Roku channel, and a $10/month plan allows access though these platforms and through supported mobile devices.

New subscribers to MOG are currently allowed a free 14-day trial.

The MOG Music Network is a music blog network that aggregates original content (written by in-house editors) and syndicated content from over 1,300 affiliate blogs. Affiliates sign up in order to reach MOG's sizable base of visitors (38 million monthly unique visitors in the US, as of April 2011), who click through from blog post excerpts on MOG to read the full post on the affiliate site.

External links

• MOG Homepage