CheckinDJ is the Foursquare for Spotify
photo: Lancaster University
CheckinDJ uses music preferences from social network profiles to create Spotify playlists for coffeeshops and other venues. Read more »
Spotify buys music discovery app Tunigo
Spotify has acquired the music app Tunigo, which helps users discover Spotify playlists and browse music and music-related news. Read more »
Rhapsody exec: splashy ads and free streaming promotions don’t work
Rhapsody has some advice for its competitors Spotify and Rdio: Don’t invest in splashy ads. Focus on featuring your service instead. Read more at paidContent »
This is why Apple wants to launch iRadio
People still buy a lot of music downloads, and most of them use iTunes to do so. That’s why Apple is now building its own streaming service. Read more »
Gracenote co-founder on ‘iPod day’ and better music through data
photo: Flickr / ヨシキ
More than a decade ago, Gracenote received some cryptic advice from Apple to buy more servers. What followed — the launch of iTunes and iPod — blew up Gracenote’s database to epic proportions and laid the groundwork for a metadata empire. Read more »
Spotify hits 6 million paid users as market for music streaming heats up
A report shows that music subscription service Spotify continues to grow at a rapid pace. The growth validates Spotify’s business model but is also inviting a growing cluster of rivals. Read more at paidContent »
Rdio expands global footprint, Spotify reportedly extends free mobile offering
photo: Shutterstock / Smith
Rdio is coming to Austria, Ireland, Italy and four other countries. Spotify, meanwhile, plans to offer free mobile radio around the world. Read more at paidContent »
Let the music play: Spotify for Windows Phone 8 arrives
After long last, Spotify’s music service comes to Microsoft Windows Phone 8 smartphones. After the download, Spotify offers a free 48 hour trial with no credit card information needed. Read more »
Music site This Is My Jam could spin out from Echo Nest
A year after it launched as a skunkworks project inside music data company The Echo Nest, trendy social music site This Is My Jam is “looking at options” for going independent — as well as getting ready to launch some fun new site exploration features. Read more »
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How to compete with Facebook in 2013
Specialist networks cater to diverse consumer segments, but Facebook’s sheer ubiquity means 94 percent of all social networkers use it. The bottom line: If any generalist network is going to gain mass-market traction, it will be at the expense of Facebook, not in addition to it. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Revealed: the finalists for the 2012 Crunchies
photo: courtesy of TechCrunch
Five finalists have been chosen in 20 different categories for the 2012 Crunchies awards, and we’re proud to release the worthy nominees today. Voting for the winners starts today, and the winners will be announced January 31st. Read more »
Volvo signs with Ericsson for cloud-based in-car apps, probably including Spotify
The deal is Ericsson’s first for its Connected Vehicle Cloud platform, which will provide Volvo drivers with infotainment apps and aftermarket services. It looks like Volvo will be keeping its platform mostly closed, though. Read more »
Pandora founder: Spotify “not fundamentally competitive” with radio peer
As Spotify and Pandora both look to achieve dominance in internet music streaming, Pandora founder TIm Westergren said Thursday at Stanford’s campus that he sees the two companies as offering fundamentally different products, even as Spotify looks to compete. Read more »
Spotify improves discovery with recommendations and follow system
Spotify rolled out new discovery tools that allow people to find new music. There’s a new Twitter-like follow system so people can follow musicians and influencers. Spotify also provides new recommendations based on what a user is listening to. Read more »
7 stories to read this weekend
Reporting in Mexico is a tough job that can get you killed. In Hollywood, you don’t know who is reading your email. And why do indie musicians hate Pandora and Spotify? These and more stories are on my recommended list of stories to read this weekend. Read more »
Spotify gets $100M, including $10M from Coca-Cola
Want a coke with that $3 billion valuation? Spotify apparently does: The company just raised an additional $100 million in funding, with Coca-Cola being one of the more notable new investors. Coke has been experimenting with digital music for some time. Read more »
In new era, operators scorn over-the-top services at their peril
photo: Shutterstock/caliber_3D
Consumers are gravitating to an ever expanding array of OTT services – much to the chagrin of telecom operators. Andreas Bernström, CEO of Rebtel, argues that not partnering up means missing out on big revenues and the control of their market. Read more »
Rhapsody releases new Android app, shows you all the songs you already know
Rhapsody’s new Android app features a bit of a different take on content curation: The app keeps track of what you like to listen to at certain times of the day, and then suggests you those exact songs at the right time. Read more »
5 most surprising things heard at Harvard’s Cyberposium
photo: Barb Darrow
Several hundred Harvard Business School students and others gathered on Sunday to hear technology company founders and visionaries talk shop. Here are my top 5 highlights. Read more »
Spotify app Soundrop relaunches, becomes social music player
Soundrop started out as a kind of Turntable.fm app within the Spotify client, but its newest iteration goes much further by adding a social integration that puts Spotify’s own social efforts to shame. But relaunching within Spotify is just the first step for Soundrop. Read more »
Open audio codec Opus gets real, gains VLC support
The popular media player application VLC just added support for Opus, the new open audio codec co-developed by Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and others. Meanwhile, there has been more speculation on how music platforms like Spotify could benefit from switching to Opus. Read more »
Curtains for MOG: Townsquare buys MOG’s blog & ad business
The market forces conspired against MOG, a music service and blog network started by David Hyman. The growing popularity of Spotify saw the company fall on hard times and was sold in pieces. One half went to Beats Audio & Townsquare media has bought the other half. Read more »
MIT’s 35 under 35 list covers tech from Dropbox to medical devices
Some of the names on this year’s Technology Review list of 35 innovators under 35 are SUNY Buffalo materials chemist Sarbajit Banerjee, Lookout Mobile Security’s John Hering, as well as some familiar folks like Dropbox’s Drew Houston and Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann. Read more »
Move over Amazon MP3 store, Spotify hits Kindle Fire
photo: Amazon
The Kindle Fire gains a free new mobile music app in Spotify, but it’s only mobile if you have a Wi-Fi connection; offline support requires a Spotify Premium subscription. However, the app supports high-quality music streaming and full access to Spotify’s millions of digital tracks. Read more »
Don’t stop the music: The average shared Spotify playlist contains 170 songs
The average shared Spotify playlist contains a whopping 170 songs, according to new data released by Sharemyplaylists.com Monday. ShareMyPlaylists has been used to share more than 100,000 Spotify playlists to date, with 15,000 playlists being shared through the site each and every day. Read more »
With 15M active users, Spotify adds free radio on Android
Spotify’s conversion rate isn’t bad: Out of 15 million active users, more than 4 million are paying subscribers. That number may soon increase thanks to Android support for Spotify radio, which is ad-supported and offers unlimited playback of Spotify’s entire digital music catalog. Read more »
paidContent turns 10: A brief history of digital media
Remember when Friendster was the hot social network, publishers doubted that ebooks would ever sell, and Netflix thought DVDs in red envelopes was the future? We do — that was that state of digital media when paidContent launched in 2002. Read more »
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Social-TV apps and consumer behavior
Social TV is any application, website or software that allows viewers to interact with television programming and share that interaction with others. Startups in this space hope to combine ubiquitous second-screen technology with well-established audience behavior to drive new value around shows. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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The evolution of consumer-media cloud storage
Cloud-based storage and cross-device syncing of media content are two of the most competitive areas in consumer IT. Apple, Google and Amazon see cloud-based media services both as a way to increase attachment to their platforms and a means to extend and amplify their broader strategic goals. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Musicplayr: cross-platform harmony for web music
It’s easy to embed a wide variety of music players on your website, but hard to get them singing from the same hymnsheet. Musicplayr’s trying to fix that with a newly-revamped player it calls ‘eye-candy for the ears’ Read more »
Mobile’s newest star Songza is red hot with 1.15 Million iOS downloads in 10 days
Songza launched in 2007, and put to rest a year later. In 2011, it was reincarnated as a mobile music discovery service and a mobile app. By marrying algorithms with human curation, the service wants to challenge Pandora and others in battle for music-app supremacy. Read more »
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Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Yandex bets on iPhone to get Russia paying for music
Moscow-based search engine Yandex is hoping to steal a march on international rivals with a new music subscription app for the iPhone — but it’s gambling that users will be ready to stump up cash for the service in a country where paid-for digital music is […] Read more »
SoundCloud is targeting mobile, tablet… and TV?
Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder of sound-sharing platform SoundCloud tells GigaOM where the company is going — including a new mobile-friendly version and the potential for TV integration — and explains what it’s like being an impromptu ambassador for the Berlin startup scene. Read more »
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How social discovery is transforming entertainment
In this busy new world of multiple social networks and recommendations tools, the discovery process itself is being disrupted by innovation and by the changing ways in which consumers now interact online. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Spotify said to hit 20M users, but it’s no wunderkind
Spotify has now 20 million monthly active users, according to new estimates based on publicly available Facebook data. The company’s growth has accelerated ever since its Facebook integration launched – but it’s success isn’t extraordinary: Long forgotten music services like Imeem were once just as popular. Read more »
Spotify plays its most requested tune: an iPad app
While Spotify has been churning out news, one question kept popping up: when are we going to get an iPad app? Well, Spotify is finally obliging, giving premium users a polished iPad version that it hopes can rule the living room. Read more »
Spotify may add Pandora-like radio service
photo: Rasmus Andersson
Spotify is reportedly working on a Pandora-like radio service that would launch by the end of the year. Read more at paidContent »
Spotify partners with Coke to expand international reach
Spotify is partnering with Coca Cola in a deal that it says will expand its international reach, giving it a boost similar to the way Facebook integration has supercharged usage. Coke will use Spotify to power its music outreach and will help promote the service internationally. Read more »
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Controversy, courtrooms and the cloud in Q1
In the first quarter of 2012 all eyes were on the screen, both big and small. Apple’s new Retina display pushed video streaming, and broadcast-TV streaming service Aereo’s launch was quickly followed with litigation. These events and more are discussed in a new quarterly report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
