Antony Bruno at Billboard.biz gave huge props to Motorola in the article Handset Companies Dial Up Music, which looks at mobile phone manufacturers' efforts to offer compelling music-centric services.  To quote from the summary:

• With entertainment content emerging as a priority for the wireless industry, the mobile phone is becoming an important element of the value chain - a consumer electronic device in its own right - rather than just a device to access a network.
• Wireless phone manufacturers like Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and others are taking an aggressive approach to score exclusive content by partnering with record labels and creating their own music-centric services to elevate their products over those of their competitors.
• Perhaps the most aggressive handset manufacturer in the mobile music market is Motorola.

The recently launched StudioMOTO and the upcoming iRadio service are nice examples of this.  Nice job, Motorola team. 

(Note: The full article is only available to Billboard subscribers; the excerpt is here.)

UPDATE:  Thanks to a reader, we now have more than an excerpt!  You can now see an image of the iRadio Billboard article.

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This is actually pretty cool.  StudioMOTO, which launched yesterday, looks like Motorola's attempt to connect directly with the youth market by offering a cool, free, music-focused, entertainment portal. StudioMOTO includes two remixing applications that enable the creation of videos and animations using pre-selected content:

MOTORemix allows users to remix video clips from bands including Bang Sugar Bang, Dave The Hustler, Paco, and The 88, and save them to a GSM phone or email them to friends.  The interface is all drag-n-drop.  Here's a screenshot:

MOTOGraph enables users to remix break beats, text, symbols, and animations into a single video clips.  The clip can then be shared with friends via email or saved to a GSM phone.  Here's a screenshot:

This is probably part of Motorola's push to generate additional brand awareness and and further differentiate the services it provides.  StudioMOTO includes a "MOTO Products" section to introduce new gear to consumers, and an "Inside Music section, which is basically a news feed taken from Rolling Stone. 

How will iRadio be integrated with or advertised through StudioMOTO when it launches, they're both targeting two very different customer segments, youth customer vs. early adopting gadget fan...

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