Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek recently blogged that “we’ve admittedly not made it easy for our users to buy music. That’s an area we need to improve”.
Well, that improvement didn’t take long – Spotify is going live today with new purchasing features in its desktop application.
Music Ally got early access to see how it all works. It’s tied in with Spotify’s existing retail partner 7digital.
From today, every track on Spotify that’s also in 7digital’s catalogue will have a clear Buy button next to the track name (see pic above – click to make it larger). Albums will also have a Buy Album button below the cover artwork.
Already, this is a step up from the way buying songs previously worked – you had to right-click on a track to see if it was available to buy, before being shunted into your web browser to do the buying.
BSkyB has been holding media briefings to unveil its Sky Songs streaming+downloads service, which launches next Monday in public beta following nine months of development.
We had some details earlier this week: all four major labels are on board, and the service will be available in two versions: £6.49 a month gets users unlimited streaming plus ten downloads, while £7.49 a month gets unlimited streaming plus 15 downloads. But today’s event provided flesh around those bones.
Sky Songs is purely browser-based. It doesn’t involve a Spotify-like desktop client – users will access it entirely through their web browsers (click on image at the right for a bigger version). However, this means Sky Songs WON’T be available on other platforms – mobile, console or even Sky satellite TV – at launch.
The company is planning on going cross-platform, but for now is figuring out the best strategy to do so, including working around the technical limitations of distributing to set-top boxes.
We’re picking up increasing chatter about a possible new partnership between Spotify and social network Facebook. Details are thin on the ground, but it appears to revolve initially around easier ways to share playlist data with Facebook friends, but that this could evolve into an app to actually play the songs too. Something could even be announced this month.
It’s not a huge surprise – Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek trailed just such an app in his keynote at The Great Escape earlier this year, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg sparked rumours in August with a status update reading simply “Spotify is so good”, and both companies now share an investor – telecoms tycoon Li Ka-Shing.
And talking of new platforms for Spotify… During its presentation at a Scottish Society of Computers and the Law event in Edinburgh last week, Spotify’s Niklas Ivarsson showed one slide with the three key distribution strategies for Spotify: Desktop, Consumer Electronics and Mobile.
We know all about Desktop and Mobile, but Consumer Electronics? The slide mentioned games consoles, media extenders and TVs. The latter appears to be part of its just-announced deal with TeliaSonera in Sweden, but Spotify hasn’t announced anything on the console side so far. However, the Consumer Electronics section of the slide was illustrated by a shot of a PS3…
Mobile music discovery service Shazam has announced that it now has more than 50 million users, with 10 million of those having downloaded its iPhone app.
Meanwhile, the company has taken new investment from VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which runs the $100 million iFund to invest in iPhone-related startups.
KPCB partner Matt Murphy says Shazam will now add more recommendation and sharing features, as well as video content, and ticket and merchandise sales. “I think they’re going to be one of the companies that shows the way to building a really large business around this ecosystem,” he says.
CEO Andrew Fisher says Shazam is now profitable, which represents continued progress given it lost £2.53 million in the year to June 2007, and £1.33 million in the year to June 2008.
Social music network MOG has announced plans to finally launch its long-promised streaming music service by the end of November, with all four majors plus indie aggregators on board. However, having originally said the service would be free and ad-supported, MOG has now decided to charge $5 a month for it.
“We were exploring that model, but ultimately that model doesn’t work,” says CEO David Hyman. “None of these labels are doing it at a price point where you can offset it with ad dollars. It’s very simple economics. Even with an upsell to subscriptions, you just can’t make it work.”
That provides context to the rumours that Spotify’s US launch won’t include a free ad-supported element – Hyman claims some labels are now refusing to license ANY free streaming service that’s ad-supported.
EMI, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have signed on the dotted line for BSkyB’s Sky Songs music service, which according to the Telegraph will launch this week in the UK (although Billboard says next Monday).
They join original partner Universal Music Group, with Beggars Group, PIAS and The Orchard representing indies. There will be two pricing tiers according to the FT: £6.49 a month gets you unlimited streaming and 10 tracks, while £7.99 gets you unlimited streaming and 15 tracks. Additional songs can be bought from £0.65.
“Our music partners bring an outstanding catalogue and unrivalled expertise that complements Sky’s strengths in content distribution,” says BSkyB COO Mike Darcey, while WMG’s Eric Daugan claims that the service will besides the music also offer “premium fan-oriented content”.
But crikey, check the skills of the guy playing it. No, it’s not Eddie Van Halen with plastic axe in hand – it’s a guy called Danny “GuitarHeroPhenom” Johnson according to Kotaku. The nickname is clearly well-earned.
UK music promotions firm FATdrop has launched a new service called Anti-Piracy, which helps independent labels detect illegal sharing of their tracks online, and helps them request that they be removed.
The new tool ties in with FATdrop’s existing watermarking technology for pre-release tracks, meaning labels can find out who originally shared the file. Then kill them. Well, slap their wrists and not send them any more promos, anyway.
“Until there’s an industry wide answer to the problem of unwanted file-sharing, FATdrop Anti-Piracy is a quick and simple way to help reduce it,” says co-founder Chris Gorsuch. Other services like this exist, but most seem to be targeted at major labels and big-name artists. Clearly FATdrop believes there’s as much demand from smaller independent labels too.
Harmonix has revealed the difficulties it’s encountering bringing the entire Beatles back catalogue to its The Beatles: Rock Band game, despite fans assuming that every Fab Four album will be converted for the title.
“Every time we do one song, it’s not like Rock Band where we wait for the masters to come in and just author them,” says PR rep John Drake. “It’s like, send people to Abbey Road, use the original tape, separate them out… it costs thousands of dollars. We”re waiting to see how things sell. We’re waiting to see how the albums do. If they sell well, we’ll have a lot more content.”
IF they sell well? The hype around the game’s launch suggested it was a cast-iron certainty for huge sales success. However, with reports since suggesting that it’s been walloped in the game charts by Guitar Hero 5, perhaps that extra downloadable content (DLC) isn’t as sure as it seemed.
Spotify has announced a deal with Swedish telco Telia, which involves the latter selling the Spotify Premium service to its mobile and broadband customers – with an interactive TV version on the roadmap too. The deal reportedly includes a branded SpotifyPhone, made by INQ – the handset maker owned by telecoms mogul Li Ka-Shing, who recently invested in Spotify.
Meanwhile, co-founder Daniel Ek has written a blog post reflecting on the company’s first year since launching, promising to be more open and transparent about the company’s ambitions. He reveals that Spotify has “hundreds of thousands” of paying users, and that it its advertising revenues have “now passed the millions of Euros per month mark”.
However, he also calls for the music industry to abandon its current per-play fees licensing model: “The industry needs to think outside of the box and realise that the new business model in music is a mix between ad-supported music, downloads, subscriptions, merchandising and ticketing where the user comes first and where the key to monetisation comes from portability and packaging access rights.”
Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek recently blogged that “we’ve admittedly not made it easy for our users to buy music. That’s an area we need to improve”.
