GigaOM » music-business

Vevo’s new live TV channel: it’s all about devices

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:19:49 +0000

Vevo took another step towards becoming a full-on music TV network Tuesday with the launch of Vevo TV, a 24-hour live stream of curated programming. The channel is using MTV-like VJs, and is at launch available on the web as well as on mobile devices, Roku boxes and Xbox 360 gaming consoles.

The company wants to eventually take Vevo TV to cable distributors to compete heads-on with MTV, according to an Adweek report, and it is also thinking about launching genre-specific live streams. Think Vevo Hip Hop, for example. But ultimately, going live is all about devices and the way they’re changing how we watch TV.

Vevo has put a lot of work into apps for mobile and connected devices, which it built in-house with the help of a small team of San Francisco-based developers. Mobile was a big success for the company early on, and the launch of the Xbox app a year ago “turned out to be wildly successful,” as Vevo’s product and tech SVP Michael Cerda put it when we talked about the subject a few months ago.

Vevo followed up with a Roku app in December, and Cerda told me that he wants to tackle additional connected TV platforms as soon as possible. “There is a huge opportunity for us there,” Cerda said.

Continuous playback combined with curation makes a whole lot of sense for something like music videos on connected TVs. Users don’t want to pick up their remote control to pick and choose every single video, but instead want something up and running in the background without interruption. And if a viewer is ever bored by what’s playing on Vevo TV’s live stream, then there’s always tons of on-demand content available right within the same app. It’s the best of both worlds.

So how do Vevo’s cable plans fit into this? Cable obviously has a much wider reach than a device like Roku, but the real lure are cable-sized ad-budgets. One could argue that Vevo might compete with itself if the same programming is available on cable set-top boxes and connected devices. But ultimately, those set-top-boxes are changing, and the distinctions between streaming and cable distribution are going to become less and less visible to consumers (to hear more about the future of TV, check out our paidContent conference in New York next month).

In that world, a live TV channel – distributed on as many platforms as possible – will guarantee that consumers will always access to Vevo, no matter whether they’re streaming or viewing plain old TV. And that’s a smart move.

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Rdio expands global footprint, Spotify reportedly extends free mobile offering

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:48 +0000

Rdio, the music subscription service backed by the founders of Skype and KaZaA, is expanding to Austria, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Latvia and Lithuania. That brings the total number of countries with a Rdio presence to 24. The announcement of the expansion comes on the same day as a Bloomberg report stating that Spotify is negotiating to bring its free, ad-supported mobile service tier to all of the countries it is operating in.

Rdio, just as a refresher, is a subscription service that tries to set itself apart from market leader Spotify with a different take on social music curation. The company offers limited free music for up to six months, but doesn’t do ads.

That’s different from Spotify, which launched a free, ad-supported mobile radio service in the U.S. last summer. The company is now looking to expand its free mobile tier to all of its 17 territories, Bloomberg reported Monday. Deals for such an offering are still under negotiation, but Spotify could start with its free streaming as early as April.

Spotify’s free mobile service is more like Pandora, offering users limited interactivity with the hopes that some are going to subscribe to a full-service offering. And the interest in music subscriptions is definitely growing: Industry association IFPI’s latest Digital Music report (PDF) claims that worldwide, 20 million consumers paid for music subscriptions in 2012. And in Europe, subscription services made up for 20 percent of all digital music revenues during that time period.

That number was largely driven by a strong showing in Northern Europe, which is Spotify’s home turf – but services like Rdio seem to bet that this success story can be repeated in countries like Austria as well.

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Pandora Chairman and CEO to step down, search for successor begins

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:35:46 +0000

Pandora Chairman, CEO and President Joe Kennedy is stepping down from his posts, the company announced today shortly after the release of its Q4 results. Kennedy, who has led the company since 2004, will remain in charge until Pandora has named a successor.

Those quarterly results were mixed: for the company’s fiscal Q4 2013, which ended in January, Pandora clocked $125 million in revenue during that quarter, compared to $81.3 million during its fiscal Q4 2012. However, losses also grew substantially to $14.4 million, compared to $8.1 million a year ago. For its fiscal FY 2013, Pandora incurred losses of $37.7 million, which is up significantly from the $19.9 million it incurred in its fiscal FY 2012.

Pandora has long struggled with finding a business model that matches its high licensing costs. The company spent 61 percent of its revenue last year on music licensing, and it has repeatedly pushed to lower the rates it has to pay rights holders.

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YouTube wants to double down on mobile music videos

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 20:53:33 +0000

YouTube is looking to expand its role in the mobile music space, making the site’s music videos discoverable by artist and genre on mobile devices, according to a recent job posting on LinkedIn. The Google-owned video site is currently looking for a Technical Program Manager to “launch a mobile music video product,” and it is setting its goals pretty high.

“You will be instrumental in unlocking music content to hundreds of millions YouTube users,” the job description states, adding:

“You will partner with Product Management, Engineering and Content to design new systems from the ground up that will generate millions of new music videos and surface YouTube’s music video catalog by artist, discography, and genre to users on mobile devices for the first time.”

YouTube recently rolled out a new app for the iPhone, which is replacing Apple’s own YouTube app on iOS 6. It is expected to release a dedicated iPad app any day now. These apps mark the first time that YouTube is monetizing mobile content on iOS, which makes it possible to display music videos from Vevo and other content partners on the platform just as it has been doing on Android.

However, Vevo is a bit of a frenemy in the mobile music space. The major label-owned music video platform distributes its videos through YouTube, but it also has has its own mobile apps for iOS and Android. Videos watched through these mobile apps aren’t streamed by YouTube, and Vevo also monetizes its mobile apps itself. In other words: Google doesn’t get a penny when people view a music video through Vevo’s apps.

YouTube’s music video monetization strategy is in part based on a policy change the site put in place in July. Previously, publishers were able to opt out of displaying their videos on mobile devices. Now, publishers can only block their videos from being displayed without ads – which means that a lot more monetized clips, including numerous music videos, are available on mobile devices.

YouTube’s director of product management Shiva Rajaraman told me at GigaOM’s Mobilize 2012 conference that this was done in part to unify the YouTube exprience, and avoid that some content shows up on mobile while other videos don’t. “It (was) one of the most frustrating experiences around YouTube,” for consumers, he said, adding that it has required a bit of education for publishers. “It’s a paradigm shift for many content owners who think about windowing between different devices,” Rajaraman said.

Check out my entire conversation with Shiva Rajaraman below:

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Spotify’s new apps could be a big boost for labels

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:01:44 +0000

Sub Pop, Ninja Tune, Matador: Record labels used to be known as curators of a certain sound, and collectors would sometimes buy every new release on their favorite labels. The weight of an iconic label has largely disappeared in the age of digital music, but Spotify is now offering record companies another chance to prove their chops as curators. The music subscription service is launching a second batch of apps for its desktop application this week, and some of the new partners include Def Jam, Domino, Pias, Warner Music and Matador Records.

Spotify is also launching a number of other apps that make it easier to discover entire bodies of music, including one that offers an easy way to explore curated playlists from artists like Miles Davis and Bob Dylan, and one that lets listeners explore classical music by composer, era or instrument. However, the launch of label apps could be the most significant development, in part because labels seem like a natural fit for these kinds of apps.

Apps on Spotify have proven to be pretty popular. Some of the launch partners of the service’s app platform shared some first numbers with us in January, pointing to impressive engagement levels. Spotify followed up with an official tally, which showed some 15 million song plays for app partner Soundrop in February alone, and also included encouraging data from other apps.

One question not answered by these numbers was: What are third-party developers getting out of building these kinds of apps for Spotify? “Right now, there is really no monetization within the Spotify platform,” explained the company’s CEO Daniel Ek when Spotify launched the apps in November. That hasn’t changed since, and it’s unclear why startups should develop their app within Spotify’s walls, as opposed to on the open web.

Labels on the other hand can only gain from increased visibility on Spotify. Not only can they direct listeners towards the music of their artists, they can also use these apps to promote and monetize other things their artists have to offer – including limited downloads, tours and merchandise. The biggest benefit may actually go to those smaller labels that have a relationship with their artists that goes beyond music sales – which are exactly the labels that used to be known as curators of a certain sound. You know, like Sub Pop, Ninja Tune or Matador.

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MTV brings back the music with new artist pages

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:00:24 +0000

Remember the time when you’d discover new music on MTV? The music network wants to get back to those roots of being a major force in the music space with a new web initiative that will give a million bands and artists their own, personalized web page on MTV.com. The new artist pages were announced by MTV President Van Toffler at SXSW Music in Austin, Texas, Thursday afternoon and will launch later this summer. A preview page went up earlier today.

Artists will be able to use the page to build relationships with fans and even make money with merchandise sales. “We are opening up all of our artist pages to let artists control them directly,” explained Shannon Connolly, VP of Digital Music Strategy for MTV Music Group, during a phone call earlier this week.

MTV.com currently has some 10,000 band pages with information about better-known bands. For its new web initiative, it has partnered with The Echo Nest and Topspin to discover and empower a much bigger universe of music. Connolly readily admitted that MTV has traditionally been focused on major label acts with professional promotion-machines behind them. “That door is still open,” she said, adding, “but we are also opening a door for any artist to walk in and share their content.”

Artists can claim pages

What does this mean in practice? The Echo Nest is helping MTV to discover bands online and automatically generate individual web pages for each and every one of them. Bands can then claim these pages and add content directly and then connect them to some of the other online platforms they are using. If a band is updating its fans via Twitter or Facebook, posting videos on Vimeo or photos on Instagram, then it can simply import these feeds and display them on MTV.com as well. “We don’t think this is gonna be a direct and immediate replacement” for other services, said Connolly.

However, MTV does want to offer bands some things that aren’t available on some of the other sites. One of the biggest differentiators will be tools that will allow them to build direct relationships with fans, including ways to collect email addresses in exchange for free music downloads. These tools are powered by Topspin, whose CEO Ian Rogers told me, on Thursday, that he is “really excited” about the collaboration with MTV. “It’s really big news for us,” he said.

Yet another platform for artists?

The question is: How does MTV get artists to embrace yet another platform, after signing up for profiles on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Songkick, YouTube and many other sites over the years? “That hurdle really is the biggest one,” admitted Connolly during our conversation. The key may be that MTV promises to feature bands on its own programming, be it on MTV News or as part of a soundtrack for some of its scripted content. “We know the power of being profiled on MTV News,” Connolly said.

That’s a key selling point for Rogers as well. Services can build new offerings for musicians all day long, he told me, but there’s no point in using them without an opportunity to reach new audiences. That opportunity exists on MTV.com, he argued, and even more so on MTV’s television channels. And Rogers agreed that it’s also a way for MTV to get back to what it’s good at: “These guys have music in their DNA,” he said.

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Rdio relaunches with new web UI and revamped desktop apps

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:29:11 +0000

Music subscription service Rdio relaunched its web and desktop apps Tuesday at SXSW, taking some of the best parts of iTunes, Facebook and Spotify to focus squarely on music discovery. “We basically took Rdio apart and put it back together,” explained the company’s head of product Malthe Sigurdsson during the event.

The new web UI resembles a desktop app like iTunes or Spotify, complete with a playlist bar on the left, a catalog view in the center pane and a social news feed on the right. It also puts a big emphasis on social interaction, making it possible for users to put together collaborative playlists with friends. Users can also compile private playlists that they don’t want to share. Rdio’s desktop apps mimick the web UI, which is available to subscribers starting today. Check out some of the changes in the promo video below:

The announcement comes some three months after Spotify unveiled its own take on the future of music subscriptions with an app platform that is integrated into the Spotify desktop player. Spotify has been the leading force in the growing music subscription market, forcing competitors to adapt and innovate, or be left behind; music subscription pioneer Napster shut down after being sold to Rhapsody last year, and MOG is reportedly in talks to be acquired as well.

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The future of music is boring – and that’s exciting!

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:26:10 +0000

I noticed an interesting trend at the MusicTech Summit in San Francisco this week: A lot of the talk over lunch and during hallway conversations wasn’t about the next big thing, about fancy Spotify apps or sexy mashups. Instead, people were busy talking about CRMs, CMS platforms and e-commerce.

Some of the companies that I ran across at the event included Official.fm, which helps artists to manage, publish and track their music online; Bandzoogle, which powers websites for musicians; and Cash Music, which wants to become a kind of WordPress-like open source CMS for bands. There was also lots of talk about licensing solutions, e-commerce apps and platforms that help bands to establish a more direct connection to their fans. You know, the nuts and bolts stuff. Much of it wouldn’t really be a very exciting story to tell on its own. But to me, it seemed like there was something bigger going on here.

To learn more, I sat down with Ian Rogers, who may be the perfect example for this new B2B focus. In a former life, Rogers managed the Beastie Boys. He went on to work for Nullsoft, the software company whose Winamp player was a key player in enabling the MP3 revolution. Rogers also worked as a GM of Yahoo Music some years back. He left the company in 2008 to start Topspin, which does marketing and retail for bands like Linkin Park and Sigur Rós and a whole bunch of other acts, many of which you’ll immediately recognize. If you ever see a band selling its T-Shirts on YouTube, chances are that those transactions are powered by Topspin.

Rogers told me that he decided to go into this space because of a huge untapped opportunity. “30,000 to 50,000 artists are making a living in the world,” he said, adding: “But there are millions of people who shop at Guitar Center.” Opening your very own online store may have seemed like a waste of time for the average bedroom musician just a few years ago, but then something interesting happened. A combination of online video and social media opened up new avenues to find a fan base around the world without investing a dime in traditional promotion. That’s huge, because it removed a key bottleneck: “Now you have people building businesses without radio,” explained Rogers.

Of course, an audience alone doesn’t guarantee that you can make a living, and new research from the Future of Music Coalition that was unveiled at the event showed that the majority of artists never see any money from services like Spotify. So is it really sustainable if every singer with a few thousand fans on YouTube wants to be a working musician? Rogers countered my question by asking: “Has it ever been sustainable?”

The good news is that there are more and more success stories, like the one of Nataly Dawn, who found fame on YouTube as part of the indie duo Pomplamoose. Dawn recently turned to Kickstarter to finance her solo album. She asked her fans for $20,000 – and got more than $100,000 instead. Dawn is not alone, but only one example for a new generation of bedroom musicians who use the Internet to connect with their audience. As they become more successful, these artists are starting to look for tools that help them make a living with music. That’s much less flashy than any story about disruptive streaming services, piracy or major labels clashing with their artists. But for music lovers, it points to a very exciting future.

Image courtesy (CC-BY-SA) of Flickr user quinn.anya.

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Music fans meet Raditatz, Pandora for your neighborhood

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:15:08 +0000

Imagine this: You are driving through your city, and your car stereo is automatically picking up whatever Pandora-like online radio stations people have built on each and every block. Raditaz, a new Pandora competitor that came out of beta on Thursday morning, wants to bring this kind of location feature to online radio. It’s not quite ready to run on your car stereo dashboard yet, but the company’s web, Android and iOS apps already look promising.

Raditaz launched on Thursday with more than 14 million songs, which can be used to build Pandora-like radio stations. The service allows users unlimited skips of songs they don’t like, and at least initially, Raditaz is completely ad-free. The service also allows advanced tagging of stations, so you can build your very own workout stations. Combined with the location feature, others at your gym will be able to find and listen to them as well.

Raditaz founder and CEO Tom Brophy hopes that this kind of information will also help sell ads at premium prices once the company starts to introduce advertising. He told me during a phone conversation on Wednesday that Raditaz also eventually wants to launch a premium offering. But for now, the company is concentrating squarely on growing its user base.

Comparisons to Pandora are inevitable for a noninteractive radio service like Raditaz, but there is another interesting difference between the two services, aside from the location and tagging features: Raditaz was built by a team of just seven people. “We have a completely different operating model,” Brophy said, explaining that the company has outsourced both its music catalog as well as parts of its recommendations engine to a third-party provider. This has made it possible to concentrate on working on the service’s more unique features. “It’s taken a lot of time and effort and thought,” Brophy told me.

So what’s next for Raditaz? The company is about to roll out an update to its iOS app this week, and it will update its Android app next. It is also working on a native iPad app and wants to eventually launch a tablet-optimized experience for Android as well. Devices like Sonos and car stereo implementations are also on the road map, and Raditaz will roll out an upgrade to its recommendations engine within the next 30 days.

Raditaz is based in Connecticut and has raised a total of $3 million from angel investors.

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Grooveshark shuts down in Germany

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Updated. How about this for a blackout: Social music service Grooveshark has shut down in Germany, blaming the local rights holders group GEMA for “unreasonably high” licensing costs. Unhappy users are asked to redirect their complaints toward GEMA, but the group, which represents authors and publishers, said in a release that it was never actually contacted by Grooveshark.

Germany isn’t Grooveshark’s only trouble spot right now: The company is fighting lawsuits from all four major record labels, which allege that it is distributing their music illegally. Grooveshark, on the other hand, argues that it adheres to the DMCA, taking down music when asked, and the company’s SVP of external affairs Paul Geller told me late last year that it has been striking 10 to 20 deals with indie labels per month.

So why shut down in Germany? The country has long been a kind of battleground for music licensing, particularly for ad-supported services. YouTube blocked access to thousands of music videos in Germany after licensing negotiations between the site and GEMA resulted in a stalemate.

However, some paid services have been able to come to agreements with GEMA. German Spotify clone Simfy has been operating with GEMA licenses for some time. That’s why it was somewhat surprising to the service that Grooveshark redireced its users to Simfy; Simfy CEO Gerrit Schumann distanced himself from Grooveshark’s statement in a conversation with the German IT news site heise.de and said that GEMA’s tariffs for subscription services have been “acceptable.”

Update: A Grooveshark spokesperson responded to GEMA’s statement by saying that the company offered GEMA “€150,000 to officially enter the country and a sustainable rate moving forward” last March.

Screen shot courtesy of Torrentfreak

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