Amazon is allegedly planning to launch a Netflix-style subscription service for books. While this idea is bound to get some criticism from book lovers — not to mention book publishers — it seems like a natural step in the ongoing evolution of the book. Read more »
A look at some of the big stories in mobile today:
» Amazon is taking one more step to enrich its content offerings; it’s reporte… Read more at paidContent »
The act of discovering new music videos and watching them in a leanback experience has not yet been made easy by distributors. That’s a problem Cull.tv hopes to solve, combining discovery and playback in a way that will position it as MTV for the digital generation. Read more »
Mobile TV has for years been one of the great white hopes for mobile operators looking for new lines of revenue from their data networks –… Read more at paidContent »
Another mobile operator is taking a crack at the streaming music market: France Telecom’s Orange is partnering with Deezer — France’s answe… Read more at paidContent »
A look at some of the big stories in mobile today:
Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) could overtake Nokia (NYSE: NOK) in smartphone shipments by the end… Read more at paidContent »
With the release of iOS 5 beta 7 for Apple’s mobile devices, the company has turned off streaming in iTunes Match. People can still listen to music as it downloads, but it will remain on the device. Is the change likely to affect the product’s appeal? Read more »
Sonos, the wireless music system, has achieved what it calls the 1 million room milestone. For a web service, such a milestone may not be as notable, but for a hardware maker that has been selling gear since January 2005, it’s a big deal. Read more »
Apple has begun testing iTunes Match with a limited portion of the Apple developer community. The service, which scans your library and provides 256 Kpbs copies of the tracks it finds for download on up to 10 devices, also includes music streaming, according to early reports. Read more »
Facebook has begun sending out invites for its annual f8 event set for September 22 in San Francisco. Despite its tagline as a developer conference, f8 2011 is not likely to be a snoozy hacker meetup — some splashy announcements are said to be in the works. Read more »
Europe’s web scene is now thriving, and we’ve compiled a list featuring some of the best and brightest European web startups — what we’re dubbing the GigaOM Euro 20. Depending on how closely you watch Europe’s online scene, some of these companies may be familiar to you. Others you may not have heard of. But all of them are worth watching closely. In this report, we profile the 20 startups that we feel best represent Europe’s current tech scene. We have organized our list around perception, and as lists go, it is intended to be a guideline rather than a rule book. It’s not exhaustive, and clearly, with such a diverse and vibrant continent as our playing field, it never could be. Companies mentioned in this report include GetJar, Huddle, Made.com and Songkick. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Bolstered by the success of its partnerships with services such as Pandora, Rhapsody, Rdio and Spotify,consumer electronics maker Sonos now wants to launch an API that would allow any music service to integrate with the Sonos platform. To me that seems like a great idea. Read more »
One thing that iTunes has over Spotify’s online music service is its wireless connectivity to the Apple TV. But it is actually possible to get the same kind of connectivity with Spotify, and use it from any room in your house. Here’s how. Read more »
The average European startup might struggle to get the same attention as the latest hot prospect outta Silicon Valley, but some of Europe’s biggest names are famous across the globe. In our first installment of GigaOM’s Euro 20, we chose these five startups as Super Stars. Read more »
European startups have a long history of trying to break the American market — a move that works for some but not all. Now the CEO of print-on-demand website Photobox says that Europe’s entrepreneurs should learn from history if they want to build strong companies. Read more »
The second quarter of 2011 was a fast-paced one for the connected consumer segment, with every sector of the digital media landscape — music, e-books, online video and gaming — experiencing significant events and changes. Media consumption, purchase and management continued its shift towards the cloud, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Last week, Spotify launched in the United States with much fanfare. Many of our readers pinged me asking for get an invitation to Spotify’s music service. We talked to some folks over at Spotify and worked on getting you access. Here is how. Read more »
Joint Matt and Kevin as they return to the mobile tech podcast after a short summer break. Hands on thoughts with the HP TouchPad, myTouch 4G Slide, HTC Status Facebook phone and Nokia E6. Participate in the live show through the chat room! Read more »
Daniel Ek, co-founder of Spotify talks to me about Apple, Android and his service on consumer devices and in cars. More importantly he shares his vision about the company and what he wants it to be when it grows up in a couple of years. Read more »
Spotify, one of the most popular music streaming services in Europe and other regions, today launched in the U.S., as expected. But mobile users will have to pay for the Premium plan, a $9.99 monthly subscription. What features do you get and is it worth it? Read more »
We all have our secret Lady Gaga songs tucked away in our playlist or the 80s’ Monster Ballads that are loved rather than laughed at, so now as Spotify comes to the U.S., here’s how to avoid sharing the skeletons in your musical closet. Read more »
EXCLUSIVE: Clio might not be the most familiar name in the world of music recommendation — but its system is one of the most intelligent. And now the Philadelphia service has strengthened its hand by signing a major deal to provide its services to Hollywood’s biggest studios. Read more »
UPDATED. Spotify U.S. is now in T-minus territory. A spokesperson for Spotify has confirmed that the popular European on-demand music streaming service will be available stateside on Thursday morning. GigaOM reported last month that Spotify’s U.S. launch would occur in mid-July. Read more »
Last week Om broke a big story on Facebook’s plans for music. But is music Facebook’s next billion-dollar business? It will be hard for the company to cash in big on music. Here are three reasons why. Read more »
UPDATED: The buzz around European music streaming service Spotify’s United States launch just keeps getting louder. Our sources reveal that Spotify’s US launch will happen in mid-July and feature a tiered pricing plan. Spotify US may initially be invite-only, an anonymous report said. Read more »
Pandora finally went public last week, and with its focus on radio, the company has a better chance for mass adoption than most other digital music services. While it may be losing money now, here are a few steps it could take to raise revenues. Read more »
Facebook has been talking to various music services with a focus on social sharing and discovery of music. In this exclusive report, we share some of Facebook’s plans and features. Expect these announcements at its annual developer conference, likely to be held in August. Read more »
As Turntable.fm has shown, a new era of social music may be upon us, one that is less about scaling wide, but more about going deep. The third era of social music is about immersion as sites add more immediacy and intimacy to the experience. Read more »
UPDATED. Spotify, the European on-demand music service, has closed on about $100 million in a new funding round from DST, Kleiner Perkins and Accel Partners that values the company at $1 billion. The fresh funding will be put toward Spotify’s highly anticipated US launch. Read more »
Nearly eleven years after Tim Westergen and his colleagues started Pandora, it began trading on the public markets. Westergen has been through hell and back and his story is no different from any entrepreneur who dares to try to capture lightning in a bottle. Read more »
The web may have revolutionized video and audio, but the humble still image hasn’t altered much over the years. That could change thanks to Finland’s Thinglink, which has unveiled the latest part of its plan to turn photographs into a true multimedia platform. Read more »
As rumors of a big Facebook/Spotify deal swirled, Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at the e-G8 Forum in Paris and reasserted that he has no ambitions to go Hollywood. “We don’t have the DNA to be a music company or a movie company,” Zuckerberg said. Read more »
Remember when social media was going to reinvent the entertainment business? Though past efforts made little headway in the social-entertainment space, announcements from Warner Home Entertainment and News Corp. suggest the space is far from dead. Here’s what companies looking to capitalize on it can learn. Read more »
Hot music startup Spotify may have won over millions of users in Europe, but it still hasn’t launched in America. That hasn’t stopped it trying to take on Apple, however, by making a surprise move to try and replace the increasingly-bloated iTunes. Read more »
Sweden and Finland have long been among the world’s most wired nations — but yet Europe’s substantial lead in networking has never quite translated over into a world-leading startup economy. Perhaps now, however, the circumstances are right to see it happen. Read more »
Europe’s hottest on-demand music service, Spotify, is narrowing its free offering as it tries to boost subscription numbers and prepare for an American launch. Will it finally end the ongoing delusion that advertising can ever make enough to support streaming music services? Read more »
For all its growth, the e-book market has been stillborn in one major way: methods in which to monetize. But recent news that a Spanish company called 24Symbols went into beta on a an e-book service shows that digital publishing could finally be evolving. Read more »
Spotify, a fast growing Swedish online music start-up has taken Europe by the storm. Today, it announced that it now has a million paying subscribers, making it one of the rare bright lights in the world of paid content and online music. Read more »
Much-vaunted European music service Spotify has been craving a move to the United States for a long time — but has been stuck in tough negotiations with American labels. But its plans could receive a huge boost if rumors of a $100m investment prove accurate. Read more »
