Is Spotify on a path to become the "dominant player" in streaming or one that lacks a path to profitability and "little content differentiation" from its competitors. Two top Wall Street analysts offer two very different views of Spotify’s future. Macquarie Research analyst Giasone Salati this week wrote that Spotify…
Category archives: streaming
Dissecting Brazil’s Music Consumption
Given its incredible size and striking diversity of population, breaking down the entirety of Brazil’s music consumption data is a herculean task. Luckily, thanks to a spike in technological developments throughout the country, music consumption has standardized to some degree, making an accurate break down more achievable. ___________________________ Guest post…
Pandora Adds Conversational Voice Mode For All Users ‘that sweeps the floor with anything else out there’
This morning, Pandora rolled out Voice Mode for all users. The advanced, conversational voice interface combines voice-recognition and Natural Language Processing with Pandora’s Music Genome Project personalization technology so that users can talk conversationally with Pandora as specific or vague as they want. Pandora is calling Voice Mode "the most…
Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Is Oldest Song with 1 Billion Views On YouTube
The official video for Queen’s 1975 single “Bohemian Rhapsody” has now passed 1 billion views on YouTube. The video is the first pre-1990s song to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is generally recognized as the first-ever promotional music video. To celebrate the milestone, a newly remastered HD…
Piracy Is Not The Problem, Free YouTube and Spotify Are, says Music Industry Trade Group
With efforts to fight music piracy seen as largely successful, at least one music trade group executive is saying out loud what others in the industry have only dared whisper – the real problem keeping artists and labels from earning more from music isn’t stream-ripping, it is the free music…
Apple Music Launches ‘Rap Life’ Playlist, Beats 1 Show
Apple Music has launched Rap Life, a new global playlist and Beats One radio show spotlighting the best new hip-hop. The move comes in direct response to Spotify top-rated Rap Cavier playlist which has 11.7 million followers. The Apple Music playlist – formerly known as The A-List: Hip-Hop – is…
Stream Rippers Easily Circumvent YouTube Blocking
Last week, YouTube successfully blocked several major stream-ripping sites, according to multiple reports. Now, most of them have found a way to circumvent the blockhead. Stream ripping is currently the number one source of music piracy globally. Here’s the update from TorrentFreak: "Mp3-youtube.download almost instantly announced that it was working…
How Spotify Calculates An Artist’s Monthly Active Users
Spotify monthly active user counts are one of the most important metrics used by the music industry – radio, media, A&R and more – to judge how hot an artist is and the size of their fan base. But how does Spotify calculate monthly active users? Is it unique listeners…
Spotify Lite Had 1 Million Users In First Week, India Users Now Top 2 Million
UPDATED: Spotify clearly filled a need with the launch of its Spotify Lite app, which takes up one-third of the space on the users mobile, while still maintaining most of Spotify’s popular features. Spotify Lite grabbed more than 1 million global users in its first week. The app now has…
Ed Sheeran Breaks Another Spotify Record: 69M Unique Monthly Listeners
Ed Sheeran has notched yet another streaming record, surpassing a staggering 69 million monthly Spotify listeners, and is on course to hit 70 million. Sheeran has seen a spike in Spotify ‘Sheerios’ – as his fans are known – with the July 12th release of his album ‘No. 6 Collaborations…