Spotify tries to go mainstream, launches splashy ad campaign. Spotify today is rolling out a major advertising blitz, including a series of TV spots as the company hopes to reach a mass audience in the U.S.
The campaign, called "For Music" and created by Droga5, will debut tonight during NBC's "The Voice" and will have Web and social media components. Thom Yorke blasts Spotify on Twitter as he pulls his music. Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has pulled his solo songs and those with his group Atoms For Peace from music streaming service Spotify, complaining that "new artists get paid fuck all with this model".
Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich took to Twitter to express their annoyance at the business model for new artists, and explain their reasoning. "The numbers don't even add up for Spotify yet. But it's not about that. It's about establishing the model which will be extremely valuable," Godrich, whose production credits include albums for Radiohead and Paul McCartney, tweeted. "Meanwhile small labels and new artists can't even keep their lights on. He continued: "Streaming suits [back] catalogue. Spotify offers a limited free streaming service, and an unlimited service at tiers of £5 and £10 a month. The industry average offers slightly less than 0.4p a stream – meaning that 1m streams of a song would generate about £3,800.
Yorke pitched in to the debate. Spotify Explained. Spotify was designed from the ground up to combat piracy.
Founded in Sweden, the home of The Pirate Bay, we believed that if we could build a service which was better than piracy, then we could convince people to stop illegal file-sharing, and start consuming music legally again. A key part of this has been in ensuring that Spotify has a free tier. By offering this free tier, Spotify is able to compete with piracy on cost and bring music consumers into the legal framework. From there, Spotify does a very effective job at converting those users into Premium subscribers.This theory that ‘given a free and legal alternative, people will pirate less’ has been proven over the last 5 years with significant reductions in piracy across the territories where Spotify is established.
This chart shows the % of each age group who choose to pirate less content when given a free and legal alternative. Spotify Announces 4m Paying Subscribers,15m Active sers. On the same day Spotify rolled out mobile radio for Android devices, the music-streaming giant has now announced some interesting new figures. At today’s Global Business Summit on Creative Content in London, Spotify’s Chief Content Officer and Managing Director of Spotify North America, Ken Parks, announced that Spotify has over 15m active users, with 4m paying subscribers. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of these figures from around the world, but it’s probably fair to say that Spotify’s launch in the US last summer has had a significant part to play in this recent growth spurt. And it also represents a growth of 1m paying subscribers since January, when the company reported 3m paying members – though curiously, this was said to constitute one fifth of its active users, which means it would’ve had 15m active users then too.
Spotify debuts new Discovery engine, Collection, and Follow, which lets users follow friends and celebrities. At an event in New York City today, Spotify announced a new Discover section to help users find new music on the service, a Collection section for holding all your music, and Follow, a place to keep up to date on celebrities.
The new features will roll out in beta soon, and will roll out to all devices in early 2013. Spotify CEO and Founder Daniel Ek admitted that users say Spotify is great when you know what you want to listen to, but not so good when you don't — the genesis of the company's new features. Some examples of content boxes on the new Discover page are "You listen to David Guetta and Skrillex. You might like Avicii," and "Since you follow The Knife, we recommend Deep Cuts for your collection. " The recommendation engine works based on music you've listened to in the past, as well as based on artists you follow.
Spotify Is Now The Number Two Revenue Source For Labels. Spotify Launches Web Radio Service, Competes Directly With Pandora - Peter Kafka - Media. Facebook Account No Longer Needed for Spotify in Germany. One of the more notable knock-on effects of Facebook’s deep integration with Spotify last September (besides making music more social) was that new users were required to have a Facebook account to sign-up for the service.
If you visited the sign-up page in the wake of the new partnership, you’d read: “You need a Facebook account to register for Spotify. If you have an account, just log in below to register. If you don’t have a Facebook account, get one by clicking the ‘create an account’ link below.” Spotify Is Raising Millions in a Deal That Would Value It at $4 Billion. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News Spotify is in the process of raising a new round of financing that would value the popular online music service at up to $4 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter, in the latest eye-popping Internet company valuation.
Spotify so far is on track to raise about $220 million. Goldman Sachs is to lead the round with about $100 million, or about half of the round, two of these people added. The people asked for anonymity because they said they would lose their jobs if their identities were known. The company, which is still in discussions with several major venture capital firms, may change the size of the financing round, depending on demand. It is the latest soaring valuation for a new generation of Web ventures with a big social networking component to their businesses. Last month, Facebook bought Instagram, an extremely popular photo-sharing app, for $1 billion in stock and cash. It’s Finally Here: Spotify Launches Its Long-Awaited iPad App. Today, Spotify is releasing its long-awaited iPad app — finally giving Apple tablet users, who also have a Spotify Premium (paid) subscription, a native route to accessing its 17-million song catalog.
It will be worth seeing whether pent-up demand for the app will translate into a rush of downloads and usage, in the same way that Spotify saw around its (also long-awaited) U.S. launch last year. On the back of that, the U.S. has become Spotify’s fastest-growing market, with the company projected to make $889 million in revenues this year on a global user base of 13 million people and counting. 'Spotify will overtake iTunes in two years' Forecast for 2012: Spotify hails 'watershed' for music industry. Spotify's vice president of marketing, Angela Watts, marks a "watershed" for the music industry and hints at big news in 2012 from the digital streaming service. • What will 2011 be remembered for?
It's been a watershed year for the music industry. The line between music access and ownership is blurring now that you can listen to whatever music you want, wherever you are. We've seen a big psychological shift with the realisation that you don't need to own music, that your musical universe can be blown wide open by not only having all of your tunes at your fingertips, but that of your friends, your favourite artist, that person you met backpacking in 2004, haven't seen in three years but can see in real time that they're loving a bit of Baxter Dury. • What was your best and worst moment? Spotify : 1,4 million d’utilisateurs aux Etats-Unis, pour 175.000 abonnés. Spotify Ready to Open API For Developers - Peter Kafka - Media. Hey!
Remember last week, when Spotify sent out that cryptic announcement about a press conference they’re holding this week, and said they’re headed in a “new direction”? Here’s what the music service is likely to announce: The ability to let third-party developers tap into Spotify’s music library and make it available to their own users — as long as those users are already paying Spotify for a premium account.
That’s what Spotify has been discussing with developers for much of this fall. My educated guess is that the company intends to unveil its plans at its Wednesday event in New York. Evolver.fm’s Eliot Van Buskirk reached the same conclusion last week. Sean Parker email, pitching Spotify interest in 2009. Spotify has been going from strength to strength since it launched stateside back in July, and since its deep integration with Facebook last month.
Indeed, Spotify is now among one of the most recognizable digital brands – but it too was once a young startup. Spotify will finally launch in the US on Thursday. Spotify has landed in the U.S. Here’s Spotify! The Music Streaming Service Officially Lands In The US. The wait is finally over! Spotify, Euroland’s prized music service, just launched here in the States. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as the company sent over pre-announcements yesterday. But here it is, complete with offline modes, mobile listening, exclusive content and, yes, even a limited, but still free user mode.
As expected, there are three levels of service including the free service plan that’s clearly designed to whet your appetite. $5 a month gets users unlimited, ad-free listening hours on the PC where the $10 plan adds in the mobile service, exclusive content and offline modes. But don’t feel like you need to hand over your credit card right away. BREAKING: Spotify Set to Launch in U.S. It appears that streaming music service Spotify is finally set to launch in the U.S. The company has posted a landing page declaring that, "the award-winning music service that’s taken Europe by storm will soon be landing on US shores.
" The page also features a form that lets visitors sign up for an invite. No details about a specific launch date or pricing were immediately available. We've reached out to the company for comment and will update when we learn more. The U.S. launch of Spotify has appeared imminent for months, with the company closing a $100 million round of funding and reportedly securing licensing deals with UMG, EMI and Sony. Spotify Raises $100 Million; U.S. Launch Imminent? European music streaming service Spotify has closed a $100 million round of funding in anticipation of a launch in North America. The round comes from DST, Kleiner Perkins and Accel. American consumers who pay attention to the tech and music industries may have a bit of Spotify whiplash. It is coming. It didn't come. Why didn't it come?
The funding values Spotify at $1 billion. Spotify has signed music streaming agreements with three of the four major U.S. record labels and is reported to be in talks with the fourth, Warner Music Group. Spotify Exec Hints U.S. Launch Is A Couple Weeks Away.