Doctors Without Borders is a non-profit organization that provides life-saving medical services around the world. Unfortunately, they face many difficulties during their overseas missions, such as rising medical costs and lack of existing treatment options. As the organization looks to raise funds to continue saving lives, Doctors Without Borders has teamed up with several music companies and streaming services. [Read more…]
Twitter #Music – What Is It?
Twitter launched Twitter #Music about a fortnight ago, a new service and app to discover new artists and music through Twitter. The system uses a platform which was acquired last year by Twitter, oWeAreHunted, but has been refined and expanded through integration with Spotify and Rdio, two large music streaming services.
Currently, the system extracts songs from iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio, but other sources will be added in the future. By default, users can only listen to short snippet of songs – 30 seconds – directly from iTunes but for Rdio and Spotify, you will need to use your credentials to log in. Based on the recent acquisition of “We Are Hunted” by  Twitter, the system will help us to discover new songs and artists based on custom criteria, including the artists followed by us or our followers. [Read more…]
Spotify Acquires Songza Competitor ‘Tunigo’
Spotify has acquired Tunigo, a music platform that is powered by the Spotify API.
Employees from Tunigo will move to Spotify’s offices in Stockhom and New York City.
In the short term the Tunigo app will remain as its own entity within the Spotify eco-system.
The move echoes an industry shift towards stronger music discovery practices. Twitter most recently purchased We Are Hunted in an effort to gain access to the music discovery sector. Â Tunigo however is more closely related to apps such as Songza and 8tracks. Those apps curate playlists and then suggests lists to users based on genre, theme, and mood.
The company has a staff of 17 people and before the acquisition had raised €2.4 million.
Tunigo was built on the premise that pressing a single button can generate the perfect playlist for music lovers in real-time. [Read more…]
Spotify’s Newest Competitor Is YouTube
YouTube is rumored to be preparing a new music streaming network that would rival industry leader Spotify.
According to Fortune the video sharing website wants to provide free songs mixed with advertisements or the option to hear song without ads for a monthly fee. Spotify currently offers ad free listening for $4.99 via Desktop and $9.99 via mobile devices.
To add value to the service Google is expected to add a digital locker at Google Play for Android. By adding the extra option the company can round out its music services for different types of users, thus creating an online experience that provides more benefits to customers. [Read more…]
Spotify Receives $3 Billion Valuation, Still Losing Money
Spotify will likely pass the $500 million revenue mark for 2012 and with losses still on the books the company is expected to seek a new round of funding, money that will valuate the company at more than $3 billion.
Revenues at Spotify are expected to more than double from last years $244 million thanks to a growing user base with a larger number of paying customers.
Spotify currently allows for two profit models. The first option is an ad supported system that generates revenues through ads. The second system includes $5 per month for ad-free computer support or $10 for ad-free mobile support.
While the company will take in $500 million this year Spotify currently must pay the major labels $200 million or 75% of total revenue, whichever number is higher. On $500 million that total payout would equal $375 million. Spotify will likely earn $60 million off that$500 million but the company is also reporting another $100 million in engineering, marketing, sales and other operating costs. Based on it’s own estimates Spotify will likely lose around $40 million in 2012. [Read more…]
Spotify Brings Free Radio Service To Android OS
Social music streaming service Spotify announced on Friday the release of its radio app for Android users. The announcement comes one month after Spotify released the same feature for Apple iOS users.
Using the application Spotify users can create stations based on artists, albums and other playlists from Spotify’s entire library of songs, nearly 16 million options all together.
Given the social nature of the Spotify app the program also allows users to receive inspiration from friends’ playlists.
Stealing a page from the Pandora music app users can also “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” song selections at which point the Spotify radio app will choose songs that best suit a listeners tastes.
One of the best features is a “like” button which will place song selections on a users desktop for later listening, a nice touch of mobile meets desktop. [Read more…]
Spotify’s Facebook Timeline Goes Back 1000 Years, Drops Some Education On Us
Spotify is the most popular music streaming services currently available in many parts of the world and the company takes their music very seriously, so much so that the service recently worked with Facebook to created a Facebook Timeline that showcases music that’s up to 1,000 years old.
While Spotify only launched in 2006 and didn’t reach the U.S. until last year they wanted to showcase different music styling of the last 1,000 years.
On the Spotify Facebook page users will find music as modern as Eminem and Frank Sinatra, all the way back to German composer St. Hildegard Bingen who was rocking out audiences way back in 1098.
By simply navigating Facebook Timeline pages Facebook users can have some music knowledge dropped on them while perhaps finding some new artists to listen to for all types of events. [Read more…]
Facebook Officially Announces Spotify Integration During F8 Conference
It’s official Spotify is coming to Facebook! Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stepped out onto the stage at Facebook’s 4th annual F8 conference on Thursday and announced the partnership while highlighting some of the interesting statistics they’ve gathered from Spotify users who have already connected their accounts.
According to Ek users listen to more music and choose from a wider variety of music while connected to the social media network. Users who opt for Spotify on Facebook are also twice as likely to pay for the service.
Ek also explained that he hopes the system will allow users to discover more music and broaden their music listening habits thanks to the Facebook partnership. [Read more…]
Facebook Preparing Music Service With Spotify, MOG and Rdio
Facebook is getting ready to leap into the online music streaming business with partnerships that include Spotify, MOG and Rdio.
According to rumors the new partnerships will be announced at the f8 developer conference on September 22. The new program will allow users to listen to music directly from Facebook.com.
Two sources close to the partnerships told Mashable on Wednesday that Facebook will not be responsible for actually streaming any music or media but will instead rely on partners to provide content to site users. If the rumor is correct Facebook will be treating music streaming more like a platform as they already do for apps and games. [Read more…]
