It’s an idea that’s been kicking around for years — that maybe people don’t want to subscribe to music in general. Maybe, in cases of extreme fandom, they want to subscribe directly to the artists they love, without all of the layers of record labels, distributors, online music stores, and so on. The fan pays,…
Forget, for a moment, how you feel about services that automatically share the music you’re listening to in the privacy of your own home to all your Facebook friends. Love it or hate it, what cannot be contested is that Facebook’s strategy of trying to become the “connective tissue” for music is paying big dividends…
On Apple’s iOS smartphones and tablets, most people stick with the default music player — formerly called “iPod,” and now just “Music.” Google’s Android platform is a different story, with several developers competing to be the preferred music playback app for an increasingly large group of music fans, now that Android has gobbled up over…
AUSTIN, TEXAS — The great thing about being a music fan these days is the plethora of listening options. The worst thing might be considered closely related: keeping track of your “collection,” if we can even call it that anymore, considering its fractured nature as we switch between various classes of music service. MSpot might…
The following interview with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek originally appeared on GRAMMY.com. Ek will give the keynote address at the GRAMMY Foundation’s Entertainment Law Initiative Luncheon & Scholarship Presentation on Feb. 10 in Beverly Hills, Calif. For more information on the GRAMMY Foundation, visit www.grammyfoundation.org. The 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards airs live on Sunday, Feb….
The Rdio music subscription service, from the co-creators of Skype, made its name by letting users follow each other the way they would on Twitter or Facebook. As such, it may have seen some of its thunder stolen by Facebook’s big music initiative, which gives similar social features to 12 music services and counting —…
It might be longer in the tooth than any of the other “big five” music subscription services, but Rhapsody, with its 800,000 claimed subscribers, is still going strong. Now, it’s doing something it probably should have done a long time ago: integrating more closely with Facebook and Twitter, the way most other things do now,…
Spotify opened up its code to iOS developers on Wednesday, with big implications for music on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Starting today, developers can build Apple iOS apps that play anything from Spotify’s entire 15-million-song-plus music catalog, with support for full-track streaming, playlists, search, and so on. Want to build an iPad app…
College is not only about learning, but learning who you are — and that includes discovering the music you’ll enjoy for the rest of your life. Yes, not only do many lifelong friendships start on campus, but it’s also a place where musical taste settles after students are exposed to all kinds of new music….
Spotify in America is no longer a hypothetical issue. Now that it has launched, what’s the big allure for music fans in using this service — and how much money do artists make from these unlimited music services? To discuss those issues and answer some listener questions (more answers here), I appeared on The Brian…
We know — the family that plays together stays together. What about the family that plays music together? New subscription plans from the Rdio unlimited music service aim to find out. The company, launched by Skype, Kazaa, and Joost co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom last summer, announced family plans Monday offering discounts when mom and dad…
Turmoil surrounds the important issue of how iOS developers can sell products and subscriptions within apps. Apple dictates that if you sell stuff within your app, you have to give it a 30 percent cut [although at least now developers can charge whatever they want elsewhere]. Apple also bars developers from linking to places where users can…
Stop the presses! As of today, Thursday, the 14th day of July 2011, it is now possible to use Spotify in the United States without being a member of the press, using a Swedish PayPal account, or employing some other workaround. You can start paying for Spotify today, during this “invite-only beta phase,” if you…
This might be one of the last articles you’ll ever have to read about Spotify planning to launch in the United States. A publication called Noisecast claims to have obtained an email from “an executive of a major label” stating that the much-loved freemium music service will launch here “between July 5 and July 15th.” Earlier…
Compared to things like bicycles or shoes, music subscription services are remarkably undifferentiated. They all have more or less the same selection of music, and it’s generally available for the same monthly prices: $5 for listening on a computer, and another $5 to add mobile device(s). But in practice, several factors and details offer music…
