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. → 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
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
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Seth Goldstein, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — sat in awe of Apple’s massive hammerlock on the tablet market. What the New York Times called 97% of the purchased category became crystal clear as HP folded its cards and went home to an uncertain future. @seth, founder of the viral music startup turntable.fm, seemed as thrilled with Spotify as he was with his own service. A complementary handoff from discovery to living in the new groove, with a tablet product on the way to supplement third party placeholders.
The session had a soft rhythm of exploration and dumbfounded amazement at what HP and RIM and Nokia were thinking when they jumped in with tablets for the remaining 3%. Did they have to try at least once before abandoning the PC, or play off the remaining 3 or 4 years on enterprise contracts, or believe in Windows Phone and Android activations? It would be laughable if real money weren’t involved, but instead these companies will have to turn to the record companies of all people for clues about how to finally make a transition into the Cloud. Or as @scobleizer pronounced it, iCloud. → Read More
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