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
Spotify has another tech integration intended for in-car listening. The streaming music service is collaborating with navigation app Waze, and elements of each service will be added to the other. This tie-up means that you can start a Waze trip while in Spotify. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Value vs price at SoundCloud; YouTube’s new live TV service; Ed Sheeran’s new album destroys records; Spotify’s rainy weather track. Continue Reading
Spotify has acquired a UK startup, further growing its behind-the-scenes tech capabilities. Sonalytic, which was just founded in April 2016, specializes in audio detection. No financial details were disclosed. Continue Reading
Spotify appears to be testing the hi-fi audio waters. Some users of the streaming service appear to have been chosen to test a version of Spotify’s premium features coupled with lossless, CD-quality audio. According to screenshots of the A/B testing for Spotify Hi-Fi, the potential upgrade could add between $5 and $10 a month to the existing monthly cost. Continue Reading
Spotify used Twitter to announce its milestone of 50-million subscribers, and to thank its customers. By any standard, Spotify’s subscriber growth has been impressive. The company noted 40-million paying users in September, and 30-million less than a year ago. Continue Reading