iHeartRadio announced a new audience milestone: 70-million users have registered with the streaming platform. iHeartRadio told RAIN News that the 70-million milestone was reached faster than the growth of Facebook or any other music service. The news comes with a new round of usage statistics. Continue Reading
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The weekly update of the streaming audio industry, from RAIN News. THIS WEEK: YouTube Analytics; DASH Radio emerges; Merlin magic for SoundCloud; FCC liberates Pandora; the ideal cost of music. Continue Reading
Yandex, a Russian search provider, announced the launch of a new music service called Yandex.Radio. The platform is an ad-supported collection of 100 radio stations. The channels are defined by genre, mood, or context. Yandex.Radio is available on both desktop and mobile versions, but only in the Russian market for now. Continue Reading
7digital announced two international partnerships today. The first is with mobile music company Mariposa, which serves Latin America. The second partnership is with OpenLIVE, an upcoming Australian music download platform that specializes in live recordings. Continue Reading
Guest contributor Mark Mulligan offers an executive summary of his new research presented at MIDEM. How are on-demand services, and the easy consumer availability of 30-million tracks, changing listening, collecting, and careers? Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Billboard on Spotify payouts; Steve Albini talks copyright; Deezer not worried about Apple rivalry. Continue Reading
Toyota announced that it was joining Ford’s SDL project, an open-source solution to connecting mobile apps to digital dashboards. The initiative counters the closed systems from Google and Apple. We spoke to Scott Burnell, Global Lead of Business Development and Partner Management at Ford, for context around this announcement. Continue Reading
YouTube launched a new set of analytics called Music Insights specifically for musicians. The participating artists can use Music Insights to view engagement information, including their most popular songs and the locations where they have the largest number of fans. It also shares aggregated view counts, which include fan-uploaded videos using that artist’s songs as well as views of videos on the performer’s own channel. Continue Reading
Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends presentation is always highly anticipated. Guest columnist Bret Kinsella dug into this year’s report and those of the past five years to develop revealing trends. Continue Reading
Line Music may have received an important vote of confidence from the Japanese arm of Universal Music. The major label has bought into the new music channel of the popular messaging app, according to Complete Music Update. Japan boasts a complicated music market, where CDs are still the dominant listening format. Continue Reading
Dash Radio has launched from its beta testing and is now operating live on the web and on mobile. The online radio platform has received $2 million of seed funding and already has a suite of 60 channels. It is available with apps on both iOS and Android. Continue Reading
SoundCloud has signed an agreement with Merlin that will enable the independent agency’s more than 20,000 labels and distributors to earn money on the platform. The people represented by Merlin will be able to earn royalties from the On SoundCloud advertising program and they will reportedly have involvement in the streaming platform’s upcoming subscription service as well. Terms of the partnership have not been disclosed. Continue Reading