Thumbplay Inc., a mobile entertainment company, has partnered with 20 new content providers including Beggars Group, Merge Records and Redeye Distribution, bringing its number of available tracks to more than 8 million.

Nettwerk, DashGo, Tunecore and Nu Urban were also among Thumbplay’s recent partnerships. The music service now includes more than 25,000 independent labels and more than 75,000 do-it-yourself artists.

“Our goal is to make sure the fans who use our service have the most comprehensive selection of music available – it’s really that simple,” said Evan Schwartz, cofounder/CEO of Thumbplay, New York.

“With these deals in place, Thumbplay Music will be the ultimate source for music – either to play the favorites you know and love or to discover new music,” he said.

Thumbplay Music is a cloud-based subscription music service that provides unlimited on-demand access to songs.

Thumbplay.com features licensed music, video and games from companies such as EMI, Sony Music Entertainment (see story), Universal Music Group and Warner Music.

Extending reach
Currently, Thumbplay Music is available by invitation only. Consumers can request an invite at http://music.thumbplay.com/, on select Research In Motion BlackBerry smartphones and on PCs and Macs through a downloadable Adobe AIR desktop version.

Thumbplay plans to launch an application for Google’s Android smartphones and Apple’s iPhone.

Consumers can do a free, three-day trial of Thumbplay’s unlimited, on-demand service. Following the trial period, subscriptions are $9.99 per month.

“Our service can only succeed if we offer the widest selection of music available – with these deals in place, we now have that,” Mr. Schwartz said. “And for the content providers, they only succeed if people are listening to their music. 

“We’ve created a next generation music service that meets music fans where they live – on their phones and on their PCs and Macs,” he said. “Thumbplay Music makes music listening entirely personal, portable and effortlessly accessible – an ideal environment for any content provider.”

More music, more users
As Thumbplay expands its catalog across all genres, the company expects to reach a wider audience.

Mr. Schwartz said Thumbplay should have all of the music consumers are looking for, but if it does not have it, its licensing team will track it down and get it. 

“The more content we have to offer – and as of now, we rival any music service out there – the more we expect people will enjoy and use the service,” Mr. Schwartz said.

“In our private beta, we are seeing that users who interact with the service on their mobile devices are spending a great deal of time exploring the content – creating personal playlists and using our recommendation tool, AutoPlaylist, to help them dive deep into the catalog,” he said.

“This is clear evidence that we need to keep our offering robust, to ensure we keep them engaged.”