After a delay, Apple has released its first entry into the smart speaker space. Reviews are now out for the Apple HomePod, and there’s a large amount of consensus about the device’s strengths and weaknesses. Continue Reading
Mixcloud has hired Joe Danvers-McCabe to join the music company as its senior product manager. In this role, he will oversee digital products and develop Mixcloud’s presence in long-form audio. Mixcloud’s platform specializes in streaming audio of DJ sets, mix tapes, and radio shows. Continue Reading
True crime podcasting is still having its pop culture moment, which means it’s ripe for the spoofing. Sketch show Portlandia made its own on-point send-up of the familiar show style, and now The Onion is getting in on the act. The humor website has released the first episode of A Very Fatal Murder. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Confirmation that young people do indeed listen to radio. Royalty rates rising for steaming music. Continue Reading
Spotify is known for its vast stores of metadata, but that information is usually invisible for listeners. Arielle Vaniderstine, a developer advocate engineer at Spotify, has made a new tool available called Nelson that puts the streaming service’s curation controls in your hands. Continue Reading
When Pandora announced the Dynamic Audio ad product last February, the idea was to create a targeting technology that could personalize audio marketing to the listener to an unusually individual degree. The launch partner for that development venture was British ad company A Million Ads. Now, the two companies are starting to roll out the result of that work, on a testing basis with two advertisers. Continue Reading
Two big box retailers are changing their policies when it comes to sales of CDs in moves that could further dampen sales of the format. Best Buy told suppliers that it will remove CDs from its stores completely beginning July 1. Target is pushing for a new sales model that places the financial burden on labels. Continue Reading
The Nerdist Podcast is getting a new name and a new home. Going forward, it will be called ID10T, with the first episode under the new title airing on Feb. 6. New episodes will become available on Tuesdays and current subscribers won’t need to change their subscriptions or feeds. Continue Reading
Much of Apple’s subscriber increase is reportedly happening in the U.S. Unnamed sources told WSJ that Apple is posting 5% monthly subscriber growth in the United States, compared with 2% growth for Spotify. That has led many other publications to see this as a sign that Apple could overtake Spotify as the biggest subscription streaming service in one of the major markets, but that projection requires some caveats. Continue Reading
Spotify has added credits for songwriters and producers to the tracks on its platform. Right-clicking on a song will reveal an option for “Show Credits,” which opens a pop-up that lists the names of the performer, the writers, and the producers. Spotify said in a blog post announcing the development that it will also provide the source of the credits. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web. Today’s stories are profiles from podcasting. Two focus on specific programs – The Daily and Pardon My Take – while a third explores how listeners become so attached to their favorite shows and hosts. Continue Reading
Apple shared its financial results for the fiscal first quarter ending December 30. Quarterly revenue totaled $88.3 billion, up 13% on-year to reach an all-time record. The period was boosted by iPhone performance, and the company’s active installed base of devices grew 30% over two years to 1.3 billion. Continue Reading