RAIN Hotspots — the five most-read articles of the week. this week: A Pandora exec talks to investors about ad revenue and his car … Kurt Hanson’s latest blog post is a tour-de-force of analysis … more copyirght hearings in the U.S. capitol … one radio station cuts its ad load in half … RAIN Poll results. Continue Reading
SoundCloud continues to drive toward its stated goal of being “the YouTube of audio,” this week releasing an updated iPhone app experience that makes listening easier and prettier. At the same time there are indications that Soundcloud creators and uploaders are driven farther down a path of alienation that started with earlier changes to the service. Continue Reading
In a retrospective, even sentimental blog post, Jelli announced that it is shutting down the Jelli User-Controlled Radio platform and station apps. The plug will be pulled this Sunday at midnight (PDT), completing a pivot that started two years ago when Jelli began building a suite of ad-tech products for radio stations. Continue Reading
Two weeks ago podcast production and distribution company Earwolf merged with The Midroll, a podcast advertising agency spawned from Earwolf’s monetization efforts, to form Midroll Media. RAIN spoke with new Midroll Media CEO Adam Sachs about the merger’s values, how podcast ads are sold, and the future of on-demand talk programming. Continue Reading
Canadian music industry outlet FYI Music News reports that Spotify and Beats Music will open their on-demand platforms to Canadian users, but not immediately. According to the report, Spotify will cross the border in October. Beats will give Canadians a New Year gift in January, 2015. Continue Reading
The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held its second hearing on music licensing regulations, hosting a panel of music-industry executives who delivered prepared statements and answered questions. As with the first hearing on June 10, four contentious issues framed today’s proceeding:
All four pillars of copyright discontent got some play today. Broadcast radio took a severe beating, but unlike the first hearing, the radio industry was represented. Continue Reading
We received a mobile notification from iHeartRadio announcing a nonstop Michael Jackson station called 24/7 MJ Radio, in commemoration of the 5th anniversary of MJ’s death. Activating the notification did not take us directly to 24/7 MJ Radio, surprisingly, but a quick use of iHeart’s search function found it quickly and the listening began. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web. Spotify reportedly preps for IPO; House hearing on music copyrights tomorrow; Pandora grabs revenue executive from Yahoo. Continue Reading
adStream is a journal of ad-spottings in online music services that highlight how commercials (audio and visual) can be an integrated part of the online listening experience.
We noted that the McDonalds “Think With Your Mouth” campaign for Big Mac sandwiches won an award at Cannes Lions this year, and we have been spotting the digital placements in streaming music services, including iHeartRadio. Continue Reading
Amazon said Happy Monday to the world this morning with a press release that cheered a successful first week for Prime Music. Particulars were in short supply, but Amazon says that uptake of the new streaming music service exceeded expectations, with users accessing tens of millions of songs. Continue Reading
Last week Vadio, a video-technology platform, announced a partnership with Vevo, a music video portal. The deal gives Vadio access to Vevo videos, for inclusion in curated video streams that Vadio synchs up with radio station webcasts. Vevo embodies a catalog of 100,000 high-quality song videos, concert events, and original programming. The alliance allows Vadio to enhance its existing repertoire of videos from which it curates programming for radio stations and other clients. We talked to Vadio CEO Bryce Clemmer to get more context. Continue Reading
The five most-read articles this week. The Summer of Copyright … YouTube ready to block indie labels as it prepares its new service … Edison Research’s new “Share of Ear” study … Google and 8tracks … iHeartRadio’s new 5.0 version of its app. Continue Reading