Sprint Nextel upgrades music store with free tunes from independent artists

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.-Sprint Nextel Corp. is offering a weekly rotation of about 10 free, full-track music downloads from independent artists in an effort to showcase its mobile music store.
The carrier is teaming with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance, which boasts a song catalog culled from more than 3,000 independent labels. The promotion, which launched earlier this month, is designed to tout top-selling IODA artists and expose music fans to new acts across a broad swath of genres.
The free tunes are available on the homepage of the carrier’s Sprint Music application, and are available on an upgraded media player from Groove Mobile, which powers Sprint Nextel’s music offerings. The new player can be loaded in less than 30 seconds, a Groove spokesman said, and includes new features like automatically correcting misspelled artist names and enhanced synching features.
Sprint Nextel will rotate holiday-themed songs through the rest of the year.
The move is the latest by a tier-one carrier to push full-track download services, which have received mixed reviews. Sprint Nextel continues to offer three songs for $5-essentially, a buy-two-get-one-free offering-while each carrier is locking up exclusive deals with artists to offer live concert footage and “leaked” singles that are available to subscribers before they hit radio airwaves.