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Bye bye BBM Music
As of 2 June 2013 BlackBerry Music will be discontinued, according to an email posted by Crackberry.com. For those who are still paying the US$4.99 monthly service fee, April will be the final billable month. From May, the BBM contacts won’t be able to access BBM Music and shortly after playlists will grey out and the sun will finally set on BlackBerry’s cancelled streaming music service. Poor performance for a service that’s barely 18-months old.
Please delete
BlackBerry advises all users of BBM Music to uninstall the app. To do so, go to the options menu, select “device” then “application management”, find the BBM Music app and delete it. To soothe the pain, BlackBerry is going to give us Rdio for 30-days free. Download the Rdio app and past in the voucher code that BlackBerry will most likely email to all BBM Music users. We’re not sure yet if it’s paid users or the 30-day free users who qualify. Either way, someone’s getting free Rdio.
A fail
BBM Music wasn’t globally available, it’s as simple as that. BlackBerry positioned the entry-level curves as inexpensive internet devices, with plenty of streaming content to go around. But again, BBM music only worked in certain countries. But this begs the question, will Rdio even operate in countries such as South Africa? The last time we checked, Rdio would only work if we spoofed it with a US-based account. There’s more to the BBM Music crash then that though.
The Verge called BBM Music “doomed from the start”. When BlackBerry launched BBM Music August 2011, the company was hemorrhaging sales and users at an alarming rate. Most users had migrated to the far superior Whatsapp service (and it’s cross-platform) for their instant messaging kicks, so sharing paid-for music with friends hardly seemed like a social endeavor worth keeping tabs on. There are endless, and more competent streaming music services available such as Spotify, Grooveshark and Rdio. BBM Music’s time has come, so do your best to delete the app before it goes offline in June.
Image via CNET.au
