'Christian Napster' Launches to Serve Christian Music Fans
The Christian digital music store, SongTouch.com has recently launched. Dubbed the “Christian Napster,” the new online store caters to a rapidly growing community of Christian music fans worldwide.
The Internet site already offers 18,000 titles ranging from Gospel to Christian Rock. At just 99 cents a download, visitors have access to a wide array of features ranging from consistently-updated articles to exclusive video clips from today's popular Christian music artists. Other payment options for downloads include buying monthly subscriptions.
"ITunes is the leader. They are the cool faction," commented David Dickinson, SongTouch's vice president of operations, and a Monument resident. "We think safe and family-friendly is the place to be."
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Recently, Christian music CDs sales have increased by 10 percent, producing no less than 50 millions copies just one decade. The secular-music industry, in comparison, has stagnated.
In one documented case, sales for the "Praise and worship" CD alone have doubled since 2000, reaching nearly 20 million copies sold.
SongTouch is currently supported by the Howard Rachinski's Touch Inc. and the Christian Copyright Licensing International.
CCLI is now the world's largest provider of Christian music licensing, reaching 200,000 churches internationally - including nearly 140,000 in the United States. The licensing program allows churches to copy and distribute inspirational and graceful Christian music to their congregation members.
Rachinski commented that SongTouch is just an extension of his lifelong goal to expand public-access to faith-based music.
SongTouch's April 12 debute at the Gospel Music Association Annual Conference has since then led to its endorsement by many popular Christian vocalist such as Nichole Nordeman and heavy-metal group Pillar.
Dickinson also reported that SongTouch has plans to market itself internationally, and has already attracted the interests of various Korean and Australian Christian music-recording companies.
The company is also looking into possibilities in producing its own music-playing devices and expanding its product line to books, games, and cell-phone ring tones.
