Spotify has shared its results for the second quarter of 2018, and the period yielded several positive figures for the streaming company. Quarterly revenue reached €1.273 billion, up 26% on-year. Premium listeners delivered most of that total. Continue Reading
Spotify has entered a partnership with Festicket, a platform for book music festival travel. Users can connect their Spotify accounts to Festicket for the Festival Finder tool. Continue Reading
Spotify has introduced a new feature for streamlining the process of submitting unreleased music for consideration on its curated playlists. The feature is in beta testing on the Spotify for Artists and Spotify Analytics dashboards. Continue Reading
Spotify has hired a musician to help build a hub centered on Arab music and culture for the platform. Suhel Nafar, a Palestinian musician, is now a senior editor for the streaming service and will work out of its New York office. The Middle East has been a region of growth for digital audio advertising. Continue Reading
Spotify Ad Studio has rolled out in Australia. The self-serve advertising platform launched after at least six months of testing in the market. The tool can create an audio ad to air on the streaming service, from the production to the audience targeting to analytics. Continue Reading
Spotify hosted a training program focused on helping women of color to make their own podcasts. The Sound Up Bootcamp selected ten applicants out of 18,000 to participate in the training where they workshopped ideas for podcasts to share their own stories and perspectives. Continue Reading
Drake continues to exert dominance over the music landscape with a new album that has broken records and demonstrated how extensively streaming has changed the role of longstanding industry standards and expectations. Scorpion dropped on June 29, and it quickly racked up enough streams to crack multiple records. The double album now holds the single-day streaming records for Spotify and Apple Music. Continue Reading
Former Vevo executive Tom Connaughton left the video platform for a position at Spotify in March and he’s already rising through the ranks. Connaughton initially joined the streaming company as head of artist and label marketing for the UK. Continue Reading
Spotify is testing a scaled-back version of its Android mobile app that cuts down on features in favor of less data use. Spotify Lite has appeared on the Google Play Store as a beta version in select markets. Continue Reading
Spotify is continuing its push into the live music space. After turning its popular Rap Caviar playlist into a concert event, the Viva Latino! playlist will get the same treatment. Concerts are becoming a notable revenue stream for the company. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Amy Schumer’s casual approach to podcasting; podcasts > television for true crime; questions about Anchor and ownership. Continue Reading
Spotify has hired Dawn Ostroff as its new chief content officer. Ostroff will be based in Spotify’s New York office. She was previously president of entertainment at Condé Nast Continue Reading