Ruckus has made available all of the music tracks of their online service free to all college students providing they have a valid .edu account. As of this year they have made agreements with all of their music labels to allow their music to be freely available to all college students in the U.S. Upon graduating, the students can optionally choose to continue their service with Ruckus for a fee.
Although it is HEAVILY advertisement laden, it does function as stated and is easy to use once you get attuned to their software interface and downloadable player. If you are looking for a free solution and are not a college student consider signing on to SPIRAL FROG.
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Press Release:
HERNDON, Va., Sept. 5, 2007 – Ruckus Network, Inc., provider of the only ad-supported, free and legal digital entertainment service for college students, added tons of new features to its service offering this summer in preparation for the 2007 school year. Now any student in the United States with a valid .edu e-mail address can browse, play and legally download the more than three million songs/videos in the extensive Ruckus® library. Ruckus added loads of new stuff, including more features, more content and more social networking to welcome back students nationwide.
New This Semester:
- “The Perfect Dorm” Contest – A back-to-school contest that gives all users the chance to win “The Perfect Dorm” – spring break getaways from SunSplash tours, a Sony VAIO notebook laptop, an Xbox 360 with Guitar Hero and two wireless guitars, a Bose multimedia speaker system, a large Westinghouse flat-panel LCD monitor, a Trek 6000 mountain bike and more.
- My Ruckus Music Application for Facebook – An interactive way for students to share their Ruckus experience with friends in the massive Facebook student community, and within their own Facebook groups, networks and friends. The app lets students share their faves, see what their classmates are listening to and immediately download the music for free. Social networking features include:
- Sharing personal preferences like top ten lists, most played, recently played, and reviews with selected networks and friends
- Seeing what other Ruckus users are doing through school-specific updates and/or nationwide stats
- Direct links to free and legal digital downloads
- Free Video Service – The only ad-supported video service that features an extensive library of thousands of full-length music videos, films (including indie, foreign, documentaries, and student films), action sports (professional skate, snow and surf) and a slew of others.
- New Media Player – It’s all about the music; and it’s all about making it easy. For instance:
- New functionality allows users to find and catalog their music libraries in easy-to-use ways
- Improved syncing capabilities makes it easier for students to take their music with them using the “Ruckus-To-Go” portable service
- The new Ruckus player even has an alarm clock function that can be set to play any song in the user’s library so students can wake up for class to any of the more than three million available songs
More Than Three Million Songs – All available legally and for free, as well as virus-free, to college students through established partnerships with all major labels – Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI – and thousands of indie labels.
The library has doubled from 1.5 million tracks available last fall.
- Musical Promos – New musical promotions focus on getting students even closer to the music and to the “action” including an American Idol Live! tour ticket giveaway (a pair of tickets for all 56 dates), tour exclusives, and meet-and-greets from indie rockers Circa Survive.
Coming Soon to a Campus Near You:
- Student-Only Gaming Channel – Ruckus is also adding a gaming channel with multi-player games, solo games, demos, trailers and more. Multi-player games provide a better, more competitive gaming experience by allowing student users to play with other members of the Ruckus community.
- Music Recommendation Engine – The new service will scan a user’s music library and point them to other tracks in Ruckus’ massive library for instant downloads. It also will highlight other users with similar music preferences. This allows users to connect based on similar music tastes, as well as discover and share music in a fresh way.
Ruckus’ Rapid Invasion:
- Monthly free and legal downloads averaging 20 million per month
- Used by students at 1,000-plus college campuses nationwide – 1,237% more schools than last year
- More than 173 official college and university partners
Click Me:
The Buzz Factor:
- “From the second I downloaded Ruckus, I haven’t stopped adding songs,” said Joanna Childers, student at Duke University. “There is so much content on there, it’s ridiculous. I was pumped to see that a lot of lesser-known bands I listen to had their stuff available on Ruckus, and with new releases every week, I’m always able to get new albums the day they come out. It has definitely made downloading music a whole lot easier.”
About Ruckus Network, Inc.
RUCKUS is the only FREE ad-supported music and media download service built specifically for millions college students. Putting a world of music at student’s fingertips, the service provides unlimited download access to a library of more than 3 million high-fidelity songs including all of the major labels and thousands of indies with new music added every week. All downloads are all 100% legal, virus-free and spy ware-free, fast, and reliable! Amongst other features, users can build a profile, create and share playlists with friends, review and comment on music, find out what’s hot on campuses across the country, and check out exclusive artist and record label spotlights, interviews and photos. In addition to music, RUCKUS has recently added a video service with music videos and live clips, feature films, TV shows, action sports, and special interest shows/shorts. What are you waiting for? Start downloading today!
To begin, simply go to www.Ruckus.com, click on “Join Ruckus” and enter your school-provided (.edu) e-mail address.
[tags] ruckus, spiral frog, free music, drm music, free music downloads, free music services, music services online, napster, itunes [/tags]
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Ruckus is a very good program for college students (and professors) who don’t want to or can’t pay for services like Napster, Itunes, etc. The only thing about Ruckus is navigating through all the advertisments, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. For teachers (with a .edu address) this is a great resource when teaching music because you can find all these songs without having to pay for them and be able to use them in your class. I’ve been using Ruckus for around a month now, and very pleased with it and would highly recommend it to every music lover out there.