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. → Read More
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
Music streaming service Spotify is releasing a new API today, called ‘libspotify,’ which allows third party iOS developers to write applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad with Spotify inside the app.
And these apps can include Spotify’s catalogue of more than 15 million tracks. Libspotify for iOS is available to Spotify Premium users as of today. It’s unclear if the startup will be building a framework for Android. Unfortunately, the use of the API is for non-commercial use, so developers cannot make money off the apps that include the API (Spotify partners with certain developers for commercial use).
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Music search and discovery company SoundHound has inked a deal with digital music service provider Spotify to enable SoundHound users in Europe to instantly access the latter’s catalogue (of over 15 million tracks). From the sound of it, the partnership doesn’t enable users outside of Europe to cross that particular bridge just yet.
Starting today, SoundHound users on iOS and Android devices who also subscribe to Spotify Premium will be given the option to ‘Play Now in Spotify’ after identifying a song through the music discovery and recognition service. That goes for users of both the free and the paid SoundHound apps.
SoundHound users in Europe who don’t subscribe to Spotify Premium will be redirected to a page inviting them to become Spotify users before proceeding to listen to the track. → 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
Streaming music service Spotify is amping up its hiring efforts in the US, wanting to hire another 100 employees according to a source. The total team is currently around 380 people.
One month after its US launch, Spotify has hired Zynga executive Teymour Farman-Farmaian as “Chief Acquisition & [Ad Business] Retention Officer.” From what I’m hearing Farman-Farmain will be in a business development-type role, scaling the streaming music product through partnerships as well as running business and support operations. According to the same source he will be reporting directly to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.
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The neat thing about the Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie is that starting about a third of the way through and definitely for the last third you’re rooting for the apes. In the tipsy turvy world of Streaming, once you get over the first $10, everything else feels like it’s free. It’s a marketing mirage but then again the Walrus wasn’t Paul. The perception is everything, even when the reception is intermittent.
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We expected it would happen eventually because here in the U.S. it happens to everyone… but two weeks? Can’t we just give them a little time to settle in, rearrange their accents and lose a bit of sophistication before we jump on Spotify’s back? Within fourteen days of arriving stateside, PacketVideo has filed a patent infringement suit against Europe’s prized music service. For what, you ask? Streaming music. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
