5-4-15
According to a CNBC report, music streaming service Spotify has been able to raise around $350 million in new funds. The report states that Goldman Sachs is one of the bigger investors and that more new investors may yet take part in the fundraising. Spotify's valuation is $8 billion, twice that of its closest rival Pandora.
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4-29-14
Sprint announced a new music deal with Spotify this week, hoping to lure more customers into its "Framily" plan. Starting on May 9, customers using Sprint's Framily plan will have six free months of Spotify's premium service. Subscribers with one to five members in their Framily plan will then receive a discount of the streaming service, at $7.99 a month, for six years. Anyone with more than five members will get the service at $4.99 a month.
3-6-14
The Echo Nest is a music intelligence company which will give Spotify more depth when users curate their own playlists. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said, ?At Spotify, we want to get people to listen to more music. We are hyper focused on creating the best user experience and it starts with building the best music intelligence platform on the planet. With The Echo Nest joining Spotify, we will make a big leap forward in our quest to play you the best music possible.? The Echo Nest will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Somerville, MA, and San Francisco. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
9-3-13
A U.K. record label is suing Spotify claiming users replicated the order of its dance music compilation albums. The Wall Street Journal reports the label is seeking an injunction that requires removal of the user-created playlists and damages. Ministry of Sound CEO Lohan Presencer said, "After several rounds of legal letters, this dispute will now be settled in court. We believe we have a clear-cut case." The company said in a statement, "The heart of Ministry of Sound's recordings business is the painstaking curation of compilation albums."
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7-3-13
TechCrunch reports that Spotify?s ?Discover? feature is now available on the iPhone. The news feed offers recommendations, songs and playlists based on current listening habits. The feature is powered by algorithms similar to Spotify?s radio for music discovery purposes, but it?s not limited to recommendations made solely based on your plays. Discover will also alert users to New Releases on Spotify, music that?s popular in their area or popular on Spotify more generally, music shared by artists and others you follow, and more. Read the full TechCrunch article HERE
3-29-13
Brian Benedik has joined Spotify as Vice President of North America Ad Sales. Benedik left Katz 360, where he was president, in September of 2012. He spent a good part of his career within the Clear Channel Radio family on the radio station and media representation sides. He will be based in NYC.
2-24-13
Forbes has this story under the headline, "The New Car Radio?" ?Spotify in the Car? is a voice-activated music service that has been in the works for over a year. The two companies unveiled the product at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona which integrates with the Ford SYNC service. Among the features: users can share playlists with friends by using voice commands, and instantly switch to a playlist they have received on their Spotify account. SYNC will will read an alert aloud, such as ?You have been sent a new playlist. Would you like to play it?? According to Ford, Drivers can also tell the app to add a track to their playlist, pause a track, play similar music or start an album, track or track radio.
At Convergence March 4th and 5th Greater Media's Buzz Knight will moderate a panel called "The Digital Dashboard and Beyond: A 2015 View." See our full Convergence Agenda HERE. Register HERE
(2/25/2013 8:36:45 AM)
I'm thinking of all the royalty fees rounding the corner when the next wave of music rights hit the fan.
Thanks in large part to the HiDef movement, wasting mega millions from the talent and marketing pool since turn of the century,placing free radio into the lower class of satellite radio as our talent and local content fell to the level of Viagra dependency.
Next well hear another need to give up successful bandwidth and coverages for more sharing of digital platforming.Why not do both?
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Another Music Streamer Eyeing The States
It looks like another music streaming company wants to compete against SPOTIFY in the U.S. -- even though SPOTIFY has yet to earn a profit here. CNET reports that international streaming service DEEZER is looking to set up shop in the STATES.
CEO AXEL DAUCHEZ told the WALL STREET JOURNAL that his company is "looking for a partner in the U.S." that would allow it to gain access to a "significant volume of subscribers." Currently, DEEZER three million paying subscribers, compared to SPOTIFY's five million, with one million of them residing in the U.S.
DEEZER's service, available in 160 countries, offers two free hours of ad-supported music streaming, but also has monthly plans ranging in price from $9 to $12 a month for those who want to stream music to their mobile devices.
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6-19-2012
Consumers will soon be able to curate their own radio stations on yet another app. Up until now that feature was only available to Spotify subscribers who paid $10 per month. Spotify says in the next few days it will be made available to all users who have the app at no charge. The goal is to take market share away from Pandora. And this may come at a perfect time for Spotify. The mobile pop-up ads on Pandora have become unbearable.
Essentially every time you go to the Pandora app now, there is an ad. As soon as you launch the app there's an ad, if you fast forward a song there's an ad, if you change to another one of the curated stations there's an ad, when you thumbs up or down a song there's an ad. And, they do not disappear until you hit the X. It's become a major annoyance. (Note to Southwest Florida radio stations: I did hear an ad for the new CarMax store. Hope you're getting some of that business.)
Spotify's new free service will have audio ads. The company will use the free service to entice users to go ad-free with a paid subscription. $5-per-month cuts out ads on computers. $10-a-month allows users to choose songs ad-free on mobile devices. Like Pandora, users will be able to thumbs-up a song for playback later. Spotify has about three million paying subscribers globally. The company operates in 15 countries and began offering service in the U.S. last July.
It's important to note that while the pure play Internet radio companies figure out how they're going to make money -- and survive -- without annoying consumers by going too far with the ads, Clear Channel is sitting on the sidelines watching how this plays out. iHeartradio remains ad-free and also includes something the others will probably never have, a big selection of radio stations from across the country. Stations from Clear Channel to Cumulus to Greater Media and others.
Spotify's announcement comes after news that Songza passed Pandora as the most popular free music app for Apple devices. Unlike the free services of Pandora and Spotify, Songza doesn't use audio ads. It has display ads. The move has limited the company's revenue, but boosted its popularity.
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