Universal Music starts promoting artists through free iPhone apps

The music industry hardly gets things right the first time when it comes to digital distribution of music, but at least some groups keep trying.

Universal Music is giving another crack at music downloads, this time trying to ride on the success of iTunes and the Apple App Store. Starting with their Interscope Geffen division, the Universal Music Group has started to release free applications onto the App Store that will provide a new venue for fans to get to know what's going on with their favorite artists. Each application is specific to the artist, providing an RSS news feed, a chat feature to interact with other fans and artist-produced video content.

The monetization part will come indirectly from advertisement and links within the application that will point to the iTunes store. UMG used the Kyte universal digital media platform to build their iPhone/iPod touch application.