Spotify Releases Subscriber Figures, Falls Short Of 2011 Projections Perhaps driven by recent industry criticism, Spotify this week revealed it now has 15 million active users worldwide, 4 million of whom pay a monthly fee for the premium version. The digital music company had not updated new subscriber numbers since last year, when it announced it had 7 million free users and 3 million paying customers. (In July 2011 Spotify said it would draw 50 million U.S. users within a year, a projection that obviously was off the mark.) Much of Spotify's growth has come in the U.S., where the service remains free for users who play a song from a laptop or other computer, while European users are restricted to 20 hours of free listening per month and free playback of any single song is limited to five spins. The new figures, disclosed by Chief Content Officer Ken Parks in a speech at the Global Business Summit on Creative Content in London, coincide with the company's release of a free streaming radio service for Android devices. Spotify recently added a similar free service for iPad and iPhone users to keep them engaged and, ideally, become paying customers. Those wanting to use Spotify on mobile devices, such as iPads, iPhones and Android phones, must pay $9.99 a month after brief free trial periods ranging from 48 hours to 30 days. [Full story: Los Angeles Times] |
Leaked RIAA File Shows Offline "Swapping" Is A Bigger Problem Than P2P Sharing A leaked presentation from the Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA] shows that offline file swapping, not online file-sharing, actually is the biggest source of illegal music acquisition in the U.S. The confidential data, released this week by Torrent Freak, reveals that 65% of all music files were not paid for, but the vast majority of these were obtained by people who trade or swap files on physical media (thumb drives, ripped/burned CDs, etc.) and that cyberlockers such as Megaupload are only a marginal source of pirated music. The data compiled by the RIAA reportedly comes from NPD's Digital Music Study, but apparently has never been published in its current form. Specifically, the NPD study indicates that two-thirds of all music acquired in the U.S. is not paid for, but of all "unpaid" music, less than 30% comes from P2P file-sharing or cyberlockers. In fact, 15% of all acquired music (paid and unpaid) comes from P2P file-sharing and just 4% from cyberlockers. Offline swapping in the form of hard drive trading and burning/ripping CDs is much more prevalent, at 19% and 27%, respectively. [Full story: Torrent Freak] |
Survey: 16 Million In U.S. Listen To Pandora Each Week According to Media Audit, internet radio service Pandora now reaches 16 million U.S. listeners (11.3% of the all consumers) in a typical week, more than any other streaming music service. The data also shows the online streaming platform indexes above average in reaching business owners as 6.7% of Pandora's weekly listeners are business owners, partners, or corporate officers, compared to 5.4% for the general population. One out of five (21.6%) are proprietors or managers, compared to 15.6% for the general population. As a result, Pandora listeners are 23% more likely than the general population to be a business owner, partner or corporate officer and 38% more likely to be a proprietor or manager. As reported by Radio-Info, the study also finds that 13.5% of Pandora's listeners are African American, 21.7% are Hispanic, and 8.9% are Asian. Among local markets where Pandora is measured, Charleston, SC (home of Digital Music Digest) ranks No. 1, with 27.9% having listened online, followed by Albuquerque (26.9%), Spokane (26.8%), Allentown-Bethlehem (25.7%), and Madison (25.4%). Additionally, Pandora has a heavy concentration of working women listeners with household incomes of more than $75,000 a year. The Media Market survey included listeners 18-62 across 81 measured U.S. markets. [Full story:Radio-Info] |
Amazon Launches Cloud-Based Music Matching Service Amazon this week announced the launch of a scan-and-match digital music service designed to step up competition with Apple's iTunes. The new service, which includes licensing agreements with all four major record labels and hundreds of music publishers, can locate music files on users' computers, create matching versions of those songs, and store them in the cloud. The move increases competition with Apple, which introduced a scan-and-match cloud storage offering for music, called iTunes Match, in 2011. Amazon says it will match all songs purchased from its online store, and up to 250 music files ripped from physical CDs and those purchased from Apple's iTunes store and other sources, and store them for free. After that 250-song limit is met, the company will charge $24.99 a year to match and store up to 250,000 music files purchased or ripped from other sources. Once songs are in the cloud, customers can listen to them through the Kindle Fire and other Amazon apps on such devices as the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android tablets, and smartphones, as well as on PCs through web browsers. The service also will be available soon through Roku internet TV boxes and the Sonos home music streaming system. [Full story:Reuters] |
Samsung Launches Music Hub To Compete With Apple, Spotify As predicted last week, Samsung launched its Music Hub service in the U.S. on Tuesday [July 31] in an effort to lure some of Spotify's buzz - and users - with a feature that combines a cloud music locker, unlimited song streaming, a radio player, and a music store. As reported by Billboard, the new service covers a range of services not currently available from other single providers, all for $10 a month, although song purchases are charged separately. By contrast, Apple currently sells songs on iTunes for up to $1.29 each and copies or matches songs on a user's computer in a virtual locker on distant computer servers for $25 a year, while Spotify provides on-demand access to millions of tracks for $10 a month from mobile devices, and provides a free radio service that streams songs in certain genres. The catch (and it's an important one): users need a Samsung Galaxy S III phone to access Music Hub. "We purposely are trying to blur the line, whether it's music from radio or catalog or your music," commented Daren Tsui, chief executive of mSpot, a digital music company that Samsung acquired in May to create Music Hub. "Honestly, where it comes from is less relevant, especially if it's a single plan. What you want is a holistic music experience at the end of the day." [Full story: Billboard.biz] |
Despite Lawsuit, ReDigi Set To Sell Used E-books Despite a lawsuit recently filed by Capitol Records against ReDigi, the self-described "world's first pre-owned digital marketplace" this week announced it is poised to start re-selling e-books once the case is resolved. In fact, ReDigi founder/CEO John Ossenmacher says Capitol's copyright infringement case filed by Capitol Records in U.S. District Court in Manhattan is only a "hiccup in the road," and vows that he will prevail in his quest to sell pre-owned digital files. If ReDigi does succeed in court - and that's a big "if," given the financial resources Capitol probably will throw behind its lawsuit - it could upset the way digital music and e-books are sold, since such products would get a second life on the resale market and provide a new revenue stream for publishers and authors. Capitol's suit against ReDigi revolves around whether the "first-sale doctrine" in U.S. copyright law, the same doctrine that enables record stores to sell used records, covers digital content . In its initial filing, Capitol said ReDigi should be shut down because, "While [the company] touts its services as the equivalent of a used record store, that analogy is inapplicable: used record stores do not make copies to fill their shelves." However, Judge Richard J. Sullivan, who is presiding over the case, has noted that "this is a fascinating issue...It raises a lot of technological and statutory issues." [Full story: Publishers Weekly] |
Andromo Turns Internet Stations Into Android Apps In Minutes Have an internet radio station and need a streaming app? The new Andromo App Maker can turn any ShoutCast or Icecast stream into a native Android app with just a few clicks, making any online station using one of those platforms available on any Android-powered mobile device. Essentially, Andromo is an online service that allows users to create apps by picking and choosing from a list of such popular activities as photo galleries, Facebook pages, and Twitter streams, without any coding. With its new radio activity, Andromo includes support for online playlists (.m3u, .pls or .asx) as well as streaming broadcasts from SHOUTcast and Icecast servers. All a designer has to do is enter the stream's URL, and Andromo can build an Android app that streams audio from that location. "We know the radio activity is going to make a lot of people happy," says Andromo founder Colin Adams. "Since we first launched Andromo, support for internet radio has been one of the most requested features. Now anyone can use Andromo to turn their Internet radio station into a professional Android app in minutes." [Full story: Virtual Strategy] |
Al Bell Presents American Soul Music ... And American Soul TV If you're into classic and contemporary Soul, R&B, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop Soul, Rap Soul, and Neo-Soul, we invite you to listen to Al Bell Presents American Soul Music. Former Stax Records owner and Motown Records Group President Al Bell personally has programmed this awesome radio station online, presenting your favorites from the 1960s and '70s [and some '80s], a lot of the best new music that's being released today, and some real gems you haven't heard in a long, long time. Come to www.AlBellPresents.Com and hear it for yourself! |
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment