Are you a music lover but tired of paying for music from different apps that slowly put a dent in your savings account? Maybe you would like to have music for free but you’re afraid to be accused of illegally downloading music? Have you ever wondered what kind of music your peers are listening to? Well, the new Trebel app has the solution to your problem and, luckily it’s coming to UC Merced!
The project started when 17-year old Juliette Mekikian noticed a problem. “I saw that my peers were going to inconvenient lengths to get music on sites where the user experience was unreliable and artists weren’t being compensated.” With the help of her father, Gary Mekikian, founder and CEO of M&M Media, the Trebel app was soon under development.
The Trebel app is very user friendly. In addition to building a custom library, customers also accumulate virtual currency by viewing ads. This virtual currency can then be used in the app to play uninterrupted music or to purchase songs outright.
Trebel’s unique features don’t stop there! Trebel allows for an offline option so you have the option of downloading a song onto your phone and listening to it even when you don’t have a wifi connection. Trebel also offers cloud storage for purchased songs, so you don’t have to worry about running out of space on your device. Keep in mind though that if you want to listen to a song stored in the cloud it may use up some of your data to re-download it onto your computer.
“Trebel is for the college students that can’t afford to pay but want control over what they listen to. We’re the best app for letting users pick and play their songs for free,” advocates Corey Jones, the Chief of Product at M&M Media. “It’s an app for millennials, by millennials”
Trebel is even more applicable to college students because of their “Top List” feature which allows students to view which songs are the most popular across campus.
Back in 2014, Trebel was released to a few universities to gain some insight as to what college students look for in a music app. They had huge success at this preliminary stage so they decided to release it to even more universities, and UC Merced made the cut!
“We chose UC Merced because it is a diverse campus in our home state with eclectic music tastes, which is very important to us. We want to develop long term relationships with students who understand that need we are filling in the market and are interested in helping us perfect the service,” explains Gary Mekikian.
To promote how their app can benefit the students of UC Merced, The Trebel team plans to partner with Greek organizations, local businesses, campus radio stations, and student ambassadors around campus. Also, they are on the lookout for student writers to interview artists and publicize their app.
Keeping their audience in mind, Trebel teamed up with Lyft, a service that provides an alternative to taxis, as they planned their app launch. When a customer downloads Trebel, that customer will then receive a promo code for $20 off their first Lyft ride. “The only thing better than free music downloads is free music downloads and free rides,” Jones emphasized.
The Trebel team encourages anybody interested in their app to check out their website at www.trebelmusic.com.
Breanne Orey
Staff Writer
borey@ucmerced.edu
Photo Credit: https://itunes.apple.com; http://www.trebel.io/