SoundHound announced a relaunch of its popular music-recognition app, which the company calls “the most significant visual change to the app.” The design is optimized for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and of course is fine in earlier iPhones, and Android phones. We tested the new SoundHound version 6.3 in both environments. Continue Reading
Edison Research released a new piece of its landmark Share of Ear research, a large-scale survey first introduced in June. The latest component is an infographic detailing the percentage of listening to audio sources in the car. Share of Ear respondents indicate that AM/FM listening still dominates in the car, followed by satellite radio. Continue Reading
Music-ID app SoundHound has created an intriguing brand integration with Grand Marnier, in which the DNA of certain songs is revealed — samples, remixes, and covers, mainly. The campaign is called “The DNA of Music,” and we spotted it surrounding a Kelly Clarkson song ID’d in SoundHound. We talked to Cheryl Lucanegro, VP of Sales at SoundHound, to get the back story of this campaign. Continue Reading
Radio group Cumulus Media and online music service Rdio forged their partnership last September, so yesterday’s earnings call from publicly traded Cumulus could be approached as a one-year anniversary of the terrestrial/online hook-up. In year-over-year growth in ad revenue, digital led the way, and Rdio led digital. Continue Reading
Intentionally named, The FIX promotes itself as an antidote: “Charleston’s answer to boring radio.” That’s Charleston, South Carolina. If you live around there, you want to know about The FIX for its focus on local bands and events. If you don’t, you want to tune in this pureplay station for the carefully curated alt-rock programming. Continue Reading
We announce the results of RAIN Polls after one week. But we don’t shut down the polls after publishing the results. In some cases they remain active through search engines and social pointers. When that happens we revisit and update the results. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia has proposed reducing the royalty rate webcasters pay to artists and labels, cutting the existing rate set for terrestrial webcasters by 80 percent. The suggested royalty amount is less than half of Pandora’s suggested rate, which in turn is about half the rate suggested by SoundExchange, which represents music labels. iHeart’s argument is based on its negotiated deal with Warner Music Group, which provides lower royalty rates in exchange for greater exposure of Warner music. Continue Reading
Crowdsourced listening platform 8tracks upgraded its web browser interface, pushing new features for both sides of the 8tracks equation — listeners and playlist creators. We spoke with Founder asnd CEO David Porter to understand what’s new. Continue Reading
Sponsored by AudioBoom
A six-minute blast of news you need to know in streaming music and online audio. This week: RAIN Summit Europe, Taylor Swift and Spotify, SoundCloud and Warner Music, licensing news, Beats Music on airplanes, a new podcast network, and streaming audiobooks. Continue Reading
Advertising and monetization of streaming audio was a key topic at RAIN Summit Europe (Nov. 4 in London). In the “Streaming Ad Sales Strategies” panel, programmatic advertising got a lot of attention. Read highlights and listen to the entire panel. Continue Reading
Thanks to sponsoring partner AudioBoom, the audio recordings of RAIN Summit Europe (Nov. 4 in London) were posted in nearly real-time. Below is the AudioBoom playlist of the whole day’s sessions. Stay tuned for videos, coming soon. Also, in days to come we will post reports of key panels, quotes, news, Twitter updates, and other details from RAIN’s third annual European trade conference for the online audio industry. Continue Reading
Pop princess Taylor Swift remains one of the most visible holdouts on Spotify and she has taken a bold action in the ongoing fight between artists and streaming platforms. She withheld her much-anticipated album 1989 from Spotify upon its initial release on Oct. 27. Today, she has chosen to remove her entire back catalog from the platform as well. Continue Reading