Beats Music set for US debut in a few months

It’s the season for music streaming services! Post plans of iTunes Radio expanding to more English speaking countries next year being revealed, it’s time for the spotlight to shift to Beats Music. The upcoming service by Beats Electronics is going to hit the US in the next few months.

Luke Wood, President and COO of Beats Electronics has told The Next Web that the music streaming service that’s a few months away will be accessible not only on the web but also on iOS and Android devices. There will be support for Windows 8 later, presumably through a dedicated application.

The service is supposed to sport the function of carefully curated playlists and recommendations. This, it hopes, will set Beats Music apart from other competitive services like Spotify and Pandora. Corroborating reports of the same, Wood said, “We’re going to focus really heavily on playlists, because that’s how we consume music and that’s how most people consume music.”

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Beats Music coming soon

The idea may seem pretty similar to what iTunes Radio currently offers, but Wood says that the focus of the service does revolve around curation than merely searching for new artistes. With a plethora of songs, genres and artistes available at the listener’s disposal, one does not know where to start from. The services may provide content but they do not aid discovery, a void that Beats Music aims to fill.

“We’re talking about real depth of personalization and knowing who I am, who you are, what we’re listening to, what we like, what we’ve listened to before and then offering up music that is highly relevant to our taste profile,” Wood said.

Beats has been one company deeply involved with music. It’s known for high-end headphones, earphones and speakers, some of which came bundled with certain HTC phones as well. Getting into the music streaming space that is already crowded with names like iTunes Radio, Spotify and Pandora may seem like a risky move to some but with ideas like curation set in place, Beats could make this work.

“You need to start with a great editorial team that has a point of view, but we want to have a situation where we can really scale to the depth of your appetite,” Wood said. “If you really love music, we want something that can go deep with you for a really long time. And that requires a perfect harmony between the algorithm and human curation. Between the man and the machine.”