On November 30 2011, Spotify made a bold move: it became an application platform, allowing third-party apps to live within the walls of Spotify’s official application so that they could take advantage of the service’s full-song streaming and tight Facebook integration. The revamped Spotify went live last month, and there are 13 third-party apps now available as part of the App Finder.
One app is especially straightforward, and it’s also surprisingly fun. It’s called Top10, and you can find it right here. → Read More
The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.
For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks this year. You’ll also find Best Social App (Google+ is up against Facebook Timeline, the New New Twitter, Instagram, and Path 2.0), the NYC-dominated category of Best Shopping App, Best New Startup and the year’s best VC’s and Angel Investors. Newcomers like Task Rabbit’s Leah Busque and Keith Rabois for his angel investments (Airbnb, LinkedIn, Yammer, Path, YouTube) made the list of finalists, as well as industry favorites such as Marc Andreessen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Pincus and Ron Conway.
In addition to today’s announcement of the Finalists, we are happy to release our next batch of tickets through Eventbrite. The release begins now, so act fast and get them while you can. → Read More
If you’re a BlackBerry user and you’ve been waiting for a music service that’s just a bit more compelling than BBM Music, then you may be in luck — emphasis on the “may.” Spotify for BlackBerry was officially released today, but you’ll only be able to use it under some specific circumstances.
The newly released app will only work for users with the following BlackBerrys: the Bold 9780, Bold 9700, Curve 9300, Bold 9000, and the Curve 8520. → Read More
It’s telling that Apple chose an app that debuted more than 14 months ago, Instagram, as its “iPhone App of the Year” for 2011. This should not imply that there was a shortage of quality and groundbreaking apps released this year. Far from it.
From social magazines to music discovery apps to console-quality games that players can hold in the palms of their hands, there are hundreds of new titles in the iTunes App Store that will inform, organize, and entertain virtually anyone who owns an iOS device. As more choices become available to different kinds of consumers, however, it’s difficult to identify the undisputed champions of the app world.
We picked 20 of the best iOS applications that came out or received significant updates in 2011. The list is a healthy mix of free and paid titles that can run on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. (We will follow up with a separate top 20 list just for games, which are not included in this list). → Read More
For a long time now, Spotify has had its own Radio experience, but, to be honest, it hasn’t been very good. Then, last week, the Swedish-turned-America music service announced that it was redesigning its radio experience from the ground up, offering unlimited stations and unlimited “skips”. And it’s no mistake that, during his presentation of the new Spotify Radio, CEO Daniel Ek happened to compare his app to Pandora.
Since its IPO, Pandora has been on a kick, but Spotify is doing everything it can to continue nipping at its heels and has added 7 million new users since integrating with Facebook at f8. Enter: The Echo Nest, a music intelligence startup whose technology powers many music apps from media companies and independent developers → Read More
Hot music startup Spotify is holding a special event in New York City this morning, where it’s going to unveil what it’s calling a “New Direction” for the service. Spotify hasn’t given any details on what to expect, but it obviously considers it to be a very big deal — enough so that it’s invited dozens of reporters to attend.
Several reports indicate that Spotify will be launching a new platform for third party developers, who will be able to integrate Spotify’s large catalog of music into new applications.
As seems to be Spotify’s style, the event has unusually high production values: waiters are handing out espressos and bite-sized breakfast foods that I’ve never heard of (but are quite delicious). The company has a custom backdrop for the stage featuring music-themed illustrations. And there are over a dozen flat-panel televisions lining the walls, which I suspect will be used to showcase third-party apps later on in the event. → Read More
Something about the juxtaposition of things reminds me of the politics of disruption, the emotional spring of the social generation. By themselves, interesting, intellectual perhaps, but not of the parallel land of hope and acceptance.
I read an interview with Noel Gallagher, the supposedly sane one of the Oasis brothers. Something about Oasis being in the Top 10 of bands. He ducked the statement briefly, attributing it to alcohol and passing it off as Top 20 straight. → Read More
It’s possible new media will steal a page from the VCs and the economics of the Cloud, putting these streaming deals together on multiple networks (Facebook, YouTube, Ustream, iCloud) with talent owning the rights in return for low startup costs. Spotify could fight off the independents by offering contracts directly to the artists, and team with the streaming studios to live cast sessions and concerts over the federated network. Soundtrack compilations for stream network-owned series like House of Cards may be where music and gaming crossover first occurs.
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Confirming rumors that started circulating earlier this week, music streaming phenomenon Spotify has finally made its way to my home country of Belgium, and is also launching today in Switzerland after debuting in Austria yesterday.
That means Spotify is now available in 12 countries, 11 in Europe and the United States.
Not much else to report for now. If you’re in Austria, Switzerland or Belgium, check out Spotify’s pricing plans (ranging from absolutely free to €9.99 per month) and enjoy. → Read More
Spotify just seems to be popping up everywhere, doesn’t it? In addition to the myriad media streamers and network receivers that Spotify has been appearing on lately, the music streaming service has just entered some wild and woolly new territory: Windows Phone 7.5. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — returned to the Social Wars with renewed vigor courtesy of two weeks of material. These issues included the Klout algorithm crisis, more fun with iOS 5 push notifications, the incredible shrinking Google+ numbers, and @scobleizer’s fabulous Verb Wall aka Spotify Motel where data goes into Facebook and never comes out.
Personally, I’m not too worried about Facebook leaving money on the table, or how Netflix suddenly validated a ton of value with their supposed social mistake. Instead I see an ever-expanding set of social services creating new opportunities for sharing realtime hints about what we will find interesting and valuable just in time. Oh, and Twitter just keeps on rocking. Now back to my movie, @Mention Matinee with nobody you have heard of yet. → Read More
Boxee Box owners who are also paying Spotify users, rejoice, for the two have been combined into one sweet music streaming app.
Boxee users with a Spotify Premium subscribers ($9.99 per month) can now enjoy on-demand access to Spotify’s millions of available tracks directly on their TV. → Read More
Western Digital is getting a lot of mileage out of their WD TV media players, and that trend continues today with the announcement of their new WD TV Live box. Unlike its big brother, the WD TV Live is strictly a streamer, but it has a reason to boast: it’s the first WD product to ship with Spotify support
The WD TV Live doesn’t have any internal storage to speak of, but it does sport 2 USB ports for all of you who carry thumb drives full of illicit TV shows.
Once it’s set up on a wireless network or an ethernet connection, the WD TV Live can access media from computers on your home network, or from content partners like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Pandora. → Read More
Setting its sights beyond the west after a successful US launch and the recent unveiling of Facebook extended Open Graph integration, subscription music service Spotify has hired former Google executive Dan Brody as General Manager Asia-Pacific. I’m hearing that Brody is currently in Australia talking to potential recruits, and Spotify itself has confirmed the GM position and that Brody is looking to hire people in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — talked Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, Twitter, and, oh what was that oh yes, Google+. In a post-Arrington unpaid blogger world, it seems likely the new alignments suggested by the Facebook announcements will quickly migrate across the social spectrum.
Soon we may see Spotify play the role of ABC to iCloud’s Disney, which in fact is already the case. In turn, smaller producers such as turntable.fm will take the role of satellite producers in much the same way Dick Wolf and the CSI producers orbit NBC and CBS respectively. Where Facebook, Twitter, and G+ stand is TBD.
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Before I lost my voice earlier today (yes, that’s me up there asking all those questions, NOT Marge Simpson), I sat down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek at F8. We spoke about today’s “launch” of Facebook Music, which wasn’t a built-in music console on top of Facebook like many had conceived, but rather a partnership built around a dozen music apps — like Rdio, Mog and Iheartradio — through Facebook’s now extended Open Graph, allowing people listening to music to share that listening activity on Facebook. → Read More
I love Yvo Schaap, even though I’ve never met him in person.
Wanna know why? Because the man keeps on digging up interesting stuff by simply perusing code, and then alerting us.
Schaap found the embeddable +1 button and a a link to the Google Games logo before either of them was publicly released, and now he may have identified several companies that will be partnering with Facebook for the imminent launch of the latter’s Music service (which may be called Vibes). → Read More
Today at the TechCrunch Hackathon, Ford, the second largest automaker in the U.S., teamed with Spotify, the fast-growing Swedish music service that recently arrived in the states, to demonstrate the current opportunities for in-car app innovation as well as the new voice-activated Ford SYNC system. Just to clarify: This isn’t an “official partnership”, it’s just a cool hack meant to demonstrate how easy it is to integrate with SYNC. For those unfamiliar, Ford SYNC is the in-vehicle communications and entertainment system that allows drivers to make hands-free phone calls, as well as control music and other in-car entertainment with their very own vocal chords. SYNC recently added integration with AppLink (in 2011 Ford Fiestas for now) to allow hands-free use of smartphone apps in the car. → Read More
Yesterday, we outlined a bit of what we’ve heard about Facebook’s upcoming f8 conference. One big launch will be their official foray into music. Today, we’ve heard more about that launch.
One thing we’ve heard from a very good source is that a key aspect of the service will be “scrobbling”. The term, made popular by Last.fm, means that when you listen to a song, it gets sent to your profile without you have to do anything. I assume there will be a way to turn this off, or a way for you to selectively share songs, but this is a key to the service. → Read More
