Independent label group and digital rights agency Merlin has signed a multi-year agreement with Spotify that will allow its artists to gate their albums to only paid subscribers. The new deal continues the existing relationship between Merlin and Spotify and marks another big development in the streaming platform’s label relationships. Continue Reading
Social media juggernaut Facebook is making some updates to its Messenger app, including an upcoming collaboration with Apple Music. The deal was announced at the company’s F8 conference, although few specifics were shared. Continue Reading
Spotify Fan Insights is exiting beta. The service has been renamed as Spotify for Artists. It still offers a central location for audience insights, song data, artist profile management, and support. Continue Reading
Spotify is expanding its “branded moments” ad units. This product allows a company to sponsor an ad-free listening option. The new targeting feature allows brands to focus their moment to a specific time of day. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: The secret to free music is Internet radio. “Streaming Needs to Get a Lot Easier for Consumers.” Breaking up via Spotify playlist. Continue Reading
After two years of negotiations, Spotify has broken through with a major label deal. The two companies had been operating on a month-to-month basis while working out a longer-term arrangement. They have been in on-again-off-again negotiations, but now they reportedly just need the sign-off from both CEOs to become official. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Will Podcasting Save the News Media Industry? Pondering a potential Pandora purchase. How much does a Spotify playlist boost popularity? Continue Reading
Spotify has hired another member for its London team. Jack Stephens has joined the company as its creator partnerships manager. He most recently worked at Songkick, and was previously at Crowdsurge (which merged with Songkick in 2015). Continue Reading
Spotify introduced a new video series called Traffic Jams. In this series, hip-hop producers and performers will create an original track over the course of a car ride. The creatives then perform their new work for a live audience at the end of the drive. Continue Reading
Spotify has made another startup acquisition. This time the purchased company is MightyTV, a company specializing in video recommendations. Financial terms were not disclosed. Continue Reading
Listeners browsing through Spotify’s RapCaviar playlist may find themselves becoming viewers. The streaming service is experimenting with a mixed audio and visual format in its popular rap playlist. Clips range from an intro and outro video for the curated playlist to full-length music videos. Continue Reading
Financial Times is the source of the latest Spotify speculation, reporting that the streaming service is close to final licensing deals with the major labels. The core of those arrangements, is that Spotify would pay a lower royalty fee to the labels, but in exchange would temporarily gate major album releases for paying customers. Continue Reading