Virgin to open online store

LONDON, UK (Mp3 News Website/Virgin Official Website) - Multi-industry household brand Virgin and its owner Richard Branson have plans to enter into the legal online music market later this year. A new subsdiary of Virgin Group, called Virgin Digital, plans to launch its digital "jukebox" application and online music store in August, utilizing the music catalog and delivery mechanism of MusicNet.

Virgin's plans include, apart from the now-already-traditional online music downloading ability bundled with CD-burning rights, more features aimed at consumer electronics. Virgin's plans are that the service would seamlessly integrate into mobile phones, handheld devices, etc. Obviously this makes sense in many ways, not least because of Virgin Mobile arm of the group.

Company also hinted that it might start a new price war in the market that has now settled to $0.99 per song pricing model. "We're not releasing the (pricing) information but it'll be hyper competitive," Virgin Digital's president, Zack Zalon, said in an interview.