Posts Tagged ‘Daren Tsui’

Cloud-based music service mSpot, which lets users stream their music library over the Internet, opened its services to the public this week.

MSpot stores users’ music collections on its servers, where they can be accessed though the Internet on any computer that can run Flash, and on Android-based mobile phones. The concept is similar to that of other online music streaming services such as Pandora, but users listen to music they own.

The service had previously been in private beta. Users can now store up to 2 gigabytes of music for free on mSpot. Premium users pay between $2.99 and $13.99 per month for between 10 and 100 gigabytes of storage.

“[MSpot] saves you the trouble of syncing your computer, where most music is stored, with a laptop, a phone, or other devices… you sync your music once to the cloud and let it distribute the music to your devices for you,” explained mSpot CEO Daren Tsui in an interview with Portfolio.com.

Once music is uploaded via mSpot’s uploader application, which runs on PCs or Macs, it can be accessed anywhere in the world through a web browser or mobile phone. Currently the service only works with phones running Google’s Android operating system.

According to Daren Tsui, CEO of mSpot, one of the toughest things about running a mobile entertainment company is “educating consumers that the phone can be an entertainment device,” although the iPhone is helping a lot in that department.

Judging from mSpot’s announcement this week that it now has more than four million paying subscribers, a 260% jump over the past year, it’s clear that consumers are finally starting to take advantage of what their cell phones have to offer.

The company’s flagship mSpot Radio service broadcasts more than 50 commercial-free music and talk radio stations and over 100 live local radio stations across the US.

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