Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM)

Of the many things that you can do on a mobile that will lead to an edifying lifestyle, putting on music that is made by other believers ranks pretty high on my list. That said, I’m not on a PC, I don’t therefore use iTunes (though if I can hijack a PC, I do use Amazon Music) to download music to my mobile. So, I’ve got to find some alternative means of getting music onto my device legally.

A method that I had forgotten about but was refreshed about when fellowhsipping with LJ before the holiday weekend was to check out music review/download sites like Holy Culture Radio and Sphere of Hip Hop. With both of those sites (and similar sites) they occasionally leak singles or even full albums from artists that you’d not usually hear in mainstream channels, but would be just as good (many times much better).

Now, checking out those sites is good. But, again, I’m on a mobile. Downloading files has to be efficient and just kind of flow with how I am on my mobile. Here’s a method that I use on my Nokia N8:

• Go to the website in question (for this example, Sphere of Hip Hop’s Daily Download Page using my mobile’s browser
• Then I click on the link for the Dailyh Download RSS feed
• I then get a prompt from my mobile asking if I want to add the RSS feed for Sphere of Hip Hop’s Daily Download RSS feed; I say yes.
• I then click to refresh the feed and can see that there are different artists who have been profiled over the past 15 or so days; I click on those I’m interested in and get a small page talking about the artist and the project.
• I can then click through to download the file or share the the link with a friend or two who might be interested in the project
• and that’s it

Now, when I am looking at those web feeds that update daily or weekly on my mobile, I am able to download from their available library of content music directly to my mobile. What’s nice and simple about this is that I can (and do) put this in effect for multiple music sites.

So, I’m not only getting music, but am constantly refreshing my ears and library with artists whom I might not be more familiar with. In many cases, I’m impressed enough at the snippet that I’m getting that I’ll search for the artist’s website so that I can learn more about them, how faith influences their music, and purchase from them full or previous/future projects.

Sounds a bit less put together, but again, this is putting my mobile device’s abilities to work in a way that might not usually be thought about to get around something that seems simple (downloading music to my mobile) with other devices or systems.

Now, do you have a means of getting content onto your mobile for reflection or sharing that might not be the conventional means? Let’s hear from you in the comments.