The cadre of apps for listening and playlisting across streaming services has got yet another member. Qus is an app that can pull tunes from YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Deezer in addition to locally stored tracks. This is becoming a more common approach to mobile listening, but few of the latest entries have shown anything that indicates they’ll stand the test of time. Continue Reading
Chinese conglomerate Alibaba unveiled a new music property today. Alibaba Planet is a tiered platform for building fan-artist relationships and for music creatives to connect with each other. China is subject to some complicated regulations when it comes to music streaming, so it will be interesting to see just how that component of Alibaba Planet unfolds. Continue Reading
Amazon announced new month-by-month options for how its users can access Prime membership perks and its streaming video features. The entire Prime service can still be bought as an annual subscription for $99, but now is also available for $10.99 a month. That alone is a marked shift in Amazon’s model, but it has also made the Prime Video streaming service available as a standalone for $8.99 a month. Continue Reading
Futuri Media publicly announced POST, a broadcaster tool for creating on-demand audio, a new product exclusively introduced by Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig at RAIN Summit West in Las Vegas on Sunday. POST makes it easy to clip segments from linear radio and re-purpose them as on-demand audio. Continue Reading
Google Play Music has officially launched a section for podcasts. The service first teased the new feature back in October, but then went silent until an email leaked late last week. But the company has been busy in that time, signing on some of the big players from the podcast world. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Pandora CEO at Midem; some context on the vinyl resurgence; Spotify’s millennial listeners; Kanye and Tidal sued over “exclusivity.” Continue Reading
SoundCloud has expanded its licensing agreement with Sony/ATV to include Europe. After much back and forth, the two parties signed a deal for the U.S. in March. The broader deal could signal interest from the company in rolling out its SoundCloud Go subscription to other regions. Continue Reading
Spotify often has a healthy sense of humor in how it engages with listeners. The latest example is for anybody concerned about the outcome of the U.S. election in November. Welcome to Canadify. Continue Reading
YouTube has unveiled a new talent development initiative called Foundry. This project will act as a springboard for upcoming artists, granting them access to production facilities and support as they make content for the service. The project could also be seen as a path toward bolstering YouTube’s cache of exclusive content. Continue Reading
Pandora announced that it has paid out a total of $2 billion in artist and songwriter royalties. The streaming platform just hit the $1.5 billion milestone nine months ago. “The rapid acceleration of royalty payments from internet radio is very promising news for the industry,” Founder and CEO Tim Westergren said. Continue Reading
Another voice joined the debate over YouTube, this time from the EU government. Andrus Ansip, former prime minister of Estonia and current vice president for the digital single market on the European Commission, said YouTube’s lower payments made to the music industry give it an unfair advantage over services that focus on subscriptions. Continue Reading
The saga continues! A new song from Kanye West briefly emerged on Apple Music then disappeared again. The track, called “Saint Pablo,” showed up in a user’s profile on Apple Music and quickly circulated on Reddit and through the music media. Continue Reading