Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web. Spotify reportedly preps for IPO; House hearing on music copyrights tomorrow; Pandora grabs revenue executive from Yahoo. Continue Reading
Wireless company T-Mobile announced a change to its cell-phone service plans that potentially impacts how consumers choose their telecom providers, music services, and even cars. Called Music Freedom, it affords unlimited music streaming for “major” music services, regardless of the plan’s data cap. A related deal with Rhapsody sweetens the package. In an era when paying for data can be more burdensome than paying for music, this initiative could turn some heads. Continue Reading
At RAIN Summit NYC in February, Gary Liu, Global Head of Industry Development at Spotify, suggested a novel advertising strategy during a panel session. Liu speculated that music-service listeners might be willing to play ads on demand, in order to clear out advertising for an extended stretch of uninterrupted music listening. There were some chuckles in the audience over that, but a report in AdAge indicates that Spotify will pitch a similar idea to advertisers at this week’s Cannes Lions festival. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web: Is Amazon Prime Music the future of digital music? And an obituary for East Village Radio. Continue Reading
File this under Friday Fun. Apple will pay $3-billion for all of Beats (the electronics and music-service divisions) when the deal closes later this year. Source reveal that the Beats Music portion of the merger is accounted at $500-million. Yielding to temptation, we ran the numbers and hereby propose (not with an entirely straight face) some stratospheric prices. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web: Cassette Store Day, Dr. Dre, an unusual Spotify protest Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthwhile reads from around the web: Pandora and Samsung, history of car music, spamming Spotify, Apple dirt. Continue Reading
Hooking into the emerging trend of longer subscription trials, Spotify today announced a “Super Summer of Music” deal — three months of Spotify Premium subscription service for the one-month price of $9.99 in the U.S. Spotify Premium includes unlimited commercial-free, on-demand music selection, and unlimited track downloads. Continue Reading
As expected, Spotify announced at a press event today that the music service is now available to Brazilian users. The expansion marks the 57th country of Spotify’s global reach. Brazil owns one of the ten largest economies in the world by any reckoning — by some accounts the sixth-largest. The country houses a population of 200-million people. Sixty-two percent of Brazil’s citizens are 29 or younger. Continue Reading
Items of interest in the music-app realm: Songza wins an award, Spotify suffers a tiny hack, Samsung will discontinue a music service. Continue Reading
It’s not every day (or week, or month, or quarter) that Spotify releases audience metrics. The company saves it up for big milestones. Today the company unleashed an important one: the on-demand music service has 10-million paying subscribers. In a celebratory playlist, there is a hidden message. Continue Reading
Spotify is reportedly set to make its music-subscription service available in Brazil. The company sent press invitations to an event on May 28 in Sao Paulo. If Spotify didn’t have its own reason for entering the Brazilian streaming market, it would be spurred by competitors. Continue Reading