Spotify Launching A Free, Ad-Supported Mobile Version

Music streaming service Spotify only has a free desktop version — its mobile version is limited to paying subscribers — but that could change soon. The Wall Street Journal reports that Spotify is planning a free, ad-supported mobile version of its service and has already reached licensing deals with three major recording companies — Sony, Universal and Warner.

The new free mobile offering will reportedly let users play a limited number of songs on demand, but will mainly play music based on the user’s input, similar to how Spotify Radio works, something the service has had as one of its earliest features. Spotify Radio was rolled out to iOS and Android last year.



Read the full story >>

#INFOGRAPHIC: Social Media Explained With Cute Kittens

You might already seen the social media explained to layman chart before, but here's a new version of that presented by folks over at Avalaunch Media at SearchFest 2013. It includes new social media platforms like Yelp, Pinterest and Spotify. These kitties really explain the social media platforms nicely.

Infographic by Avalaunch Media
Submitted by Priyeshu Garg

Spotify Will Launch A Browser-Based Version

By Josh Constine at TechCrunch:
If you’re wondering why the Spotify desktop software has hardly been updated in a year, it’s because the company is preparing to launch a completely overhauled browser-based version of its streaming music service, multiple sources confirm. Along with moving to the web, the redesign will focus more on discovery, including following the listening habits and playlists of influencers in addition to your friends.

One source even said a lower subscription price for its mobile app could be in the works. With a healthy user base and the record labels’ support, the browser version could help Spotify continue dominating the streaming music spotlight.


Read the full story here










 

INFOGRAPHIC: How Are You Listening to Music?

By Neha Prakash at Mashable:
Music is a big part of everyone’s life, with 45% of people listening to 10 or more hours of music each week, according to a recent study by Market Research. And social music players like Pandora and Spotify are ruling the airwaves.

Not so surprisingly though, people enjoy using music streamers, but not paying for the premium versions of those players. Only 20% will cash in to hear some tunes, and 60% of listeners are downloading only the free version of songs.

Check out the infographic below for more music stats.

Spotify Releases Free Radio App for Android

By Devon Glenn at Social Times:

The social streaming service for music lovers is putting a radio in the pockets of Android users everywhere. One month after releasing its radio app to iOS users, Spotify has brought the app to the Android.

Listeners can create stations from artists, albums, or other playlists from Spotify’s entire library of songs. The last time we counted, there were 16 million. They can also look at their friends’ playlists for inspiration.
Much like Pandora, the songs come up automatically. Listeners can give a song a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down” to train the app to pull up songs they’ll actually like.
One cool feature is that any song that listeners “like” on the app will appear on their desktops when they get home.

Spotify’s radio app is free to download, but premium members (who pay a monthly fee) can listen to the radio without advertisements. The app is available now at the Google Play Store.


Read the full story here

INFOGRAPHIC: Social Media Leaders

By Shawn Hess at WebProNews:  
So you think you know everything about social media and networking? Well the truth is, it has been around a lot longer than Facebook, but like a lot of things on the internet, we don’t hear about them until they are trendy and popular, or somebody gets sued over them.
This infographic from Socialjumpstart.com shows us who the big names in social networking are and how long they’ve been around. It covers everybody who has a presence online today. Of course, Facebook comes out on top, no surprise there.
Reddit, Club Penguin, Tagged, Spotify, and even the big guys like Twitter, and Linkedin show up on this graphic. So if you want to get the lowdown on what’s happening in social networking today, you need look no further. Enjoy!

Browse more Social Media infographics.

Yahoo Deal With Spotify, Replacing Rhapsody

By Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch: 
Here’s an interesting twist for Yahoo, the beleaguered internet company, and Spotify, the upstart streaming music service that is taking the market by storm: today the two have announced a global deal, in which Yahoo will integrate and promote Spotify’s music service on the Yahoo Media network; and Spotify will get a Yahoo app on its platform. The move shows how Spotify is teaming up with a big, old-school internet player in an effort to ramp up its user numbers, and how Yahoo is looking to new blood to rejuvenate itself. But it is also a big blow for Rhapsody, which Spotify will now be replacing as Yahoo’s music streaming partner, a spokesperson has confirmed to TechCrunch.

The deal will see Spotify first rolling out to Yahoo Music. Later it will also start appearing in other verticals within the media network, including Yahoo Movies and omg!, says Yahoo. That represents a much wider-ranging agreement than the one Rhapsody had with Yahoo since 2008.

Yahoo says the app that it will create for Spotify’s platform will feature original, music-related content created by Yahoo — artist profiles, musical programs and other features. Spotify has 10 million users of its service. The app is due out later this year, the companies say.

Read the full story here







 

Spotify Releases Free Mobile Radio in the U.S.

By Devon Glenn at Social Times:  
For months, Spotify listeners were dying to get their hands on an iPad version of the music streaming service. Finally, that day arrived — and the service was $9.99 a month. Thankfully, the company has released a free version of its iPad and iPhone app to listeners in the U.S.  Much like Pandora’s, Spotify’s radio app offers continuous music on personalized radio stations.
Here’s how it works:

• You can create streaming radio stations from single songs, playlists, albums, or artists.
• There are 16 million tracks in the catalog to choose from.
• You can create as many stations as you want, with an unlimited amount of listening time.
• You personalize your stations in real time by “liking” the tracks to hear similar music.
• The recommendation engine makes suggestions based on what other people are listening to on Spotify.
• If you “like” a track, it’ll automatically be saved to your playlist so you can listen to it later.
• The app is also social: you can look at your friends’ playlists and create radio stations based on their tastes.

Read the full story here

Spotify app comes to iPad (Plus Video)

By Michelle Maltais at LA Times:  
The long-awaited Spotify app for iPad is here. And your first reaction is likely to be, "Hey, that's a nice-looking app."
The paid streaming music service's 17 million tracks are now available to Apple's tablet users. The iPad app, Version 0.5.0 of Spotify's iOS app, is iPad-3-ready with Retina graphics and high-definition album art. Users can search for playlists, other subscribers and music from the same view.
The "What's New" section features recommended albums, trending playlists among friends and nearby, as well as new releases. In the search window, the app offers predictive offerings even as you type the first letter.
Inbox is where you find music your friends have shared with you in Spotify. And the app works in both landscape and portrait modes, but really it's more attractive in portrait.
The update also brings gapless playback and cross-fading, which is already on the desktop version as of February, and fixes some bugs related to playlists.
Most users are already familiar with Spotify. But in case you aren't, if you're looking for a free streaming option for your iPad, forget it. The app is fairly useless unless you're a premium subscriber.
Users can sign up for a 30-day trial. After that, it's $10 a month to keep the music streaming. You can, however, sync a track from your computer through Spotify.
In the YouTube video promoting the iPad app, Spotify has a bit of fun. We won't spoil it for you. Check it out below.

INFOGRAPHIC: How Social Sites Make Money

Published by USBundles.com at Visual.ly:
"We turn to social media services to stay connected more and more each day. But even with hordes of devoted followers, how do these sites manage turn a profit?" That was said by USBundles, Lets have a look at this Infographic provided by them at Visual.ly

Spotify now has over three million paying subscribers

By Sam Byford at The Verge: 
The debate goes on as to how good subscription-based streaming services are for the music industry, but it's clear that adoption is on the rise. While Spotify revealed that it had reached two and a half million paying subscribers at the end of 2011, it's already hit the three million milestone before January is out. That's three million people making monthly payments of either $4.99 / €4.99 / £4.99 for ad-free listening, or $9.99 / €9.99 / £9.99 for mobile streaming — over 20 percent of the service's active user base. Of course, the most potentially significant driver of Spotify's growth is its recent launch in the US, along with its integration into Facebook, and managing director Ken Parks told the Financial Times that the plan is to keep expanding into new markets.

Spotify To Pull the Plug on Free Unlimited Music

By Devon Glenn at SocialTimes: 
Spotify may be trying save the record industry with better deals for labels, but the savings are about to end for the many of the on-demand music streaming service’s 1.4 million subscribers.
According to a report from The Verge, Spotify users who have free accounts in the U.S. will be limited to ten hours of streaming per month, with five plays per song.  To get unlimited music they’ll have to sign up for one of the site’s premium plans, which cost $4.99 and $9.99 per month.
The company had implemented these same changes in the UK back in April.  The blog post received so much traffic – and so many comments from users, whose responses ranged from supportive to outraged – that the comments had to be disabled.

Read the full article here at SocialTimes

Spotify for BlackBerry available now

Via Spotify Official Blog:
We are excited to let you know that our BlackBerry app is no longer a Preview release and is now available to any user with a compatible phone. To download the app simply point the browser on your phone to m.spotify.com and follow the installation instructions.

Compatible phones include Bold 9780, Bold 9700, Curve 9300, Bold 9000, Curve 8520. Currently the app only supports phones running on GSM networks. CDMA-network phones and the Torch 9800 are not compatible.

As with all of our mobile app you’ll need a Spotify Premium subscription to stream from our catalogue. You can take advantage of our 48-hour free trial directly from the mobile app or sign up to our 30-day free trial to give it a spin.

Enjoy!

Spotmeup: The free, easy way for musicians to get their music on Spotify

When you think about the fact that Spotify has 2.5 million paying subscribers, without taking into account the millions of users who use the service for free, any up and coming band or artist would probably love to get their music into some Spotify playlists.
With Spotmeup, a new free service, that’s exactly what they can do. Signing up for a free account, all you have to do is upload your songs to the site, wait for your tunes to be screened and appear in the Spotify library. The screening process can take anywhere from 7 days to 4 weeks.
While the native upload feature couldn’t be easier to use, if you have your music backed up on Dropbox already, you can connect your accounts, and get your music into Spotify faster than ever.
If you’re thinking of using the service to upload copyrighted music that isn’t available on Spotify, think again, as the site clearly states that any copyrighted songs will be rejected.
There are a few other guidelines to keep in mind. While anyone can submit their music to Spotmeup, there is a screening process and the main criteria is sound quality. The audio must be of studio quality, and the music has to be “fairly serious” according to the FAQs. The example given says:

“Lets say you grab the guitar and record a 30 sec clip on your mobile phone, singing in the kitchen while the TV is running at full blast in the background, that is not a serious recording and it will be rejected by Spotmeup. Our goal is to deliver great music to the audience and make Spotify the best place to discover good music.”

Spotmeup accepts the most common audio formats, and the minimum accepted bit rate is 320 kb/s. Another factor to keep in mind is that to remove an album or single from Spotify, you’ll have to pay $10.
You can also take advantage of Spotify’s social media features, sharing your tunes on Facebook, Twitter or MSN, and create Spotify links to share your official band page or profiles. While you don’t get paid if Spotify users stream your music, you will get paid if your music is downloaded, at a rate of $0.70 per track. If your music is purchased as part of a bundle, you will be paid based on Spotify’s calculations for the prorated share of all monthly bundle purchases, and the amount tends to vary.
As a listener, if you’re on the look out for new music, you can check out some of the artists that are using SpotMeUp featured on the site here.
Up until now, Spotmeup has been used to upload about 1,500 songs to Spotify, and counting. So if you want to get in on it, sign up for a free account, to get your music heard.

by Nancy Messieh at TheNextWeb

Spotify Says It's Headed in a "New Direction"

Apple launched its newest music offering a week ago. Google went a few days later. Now Spotify says it has something up its sleeve, too: The streaming music service just sent out a mysterioso invitation to a Nov. 30 press event in New York.
As has become standard issue for this sort of thing, the invite for the “global press conference” hints at big news and spells out zilch — just that the company has “some exciting news to share with you,” and that CEO Daniel Ek will be there, along with “a special guest or two.”
I asked Spotify PR for more info, and they were equally oblique, passing along this reply via email: “At Spotify, we continually strive to innovate and deliver exciting new experiences for our users. In New York on November 30th, we are holding our first press conference to unveil the latest major development from Spotify — and a new direction for the company. The press event will be hosted by CEO and Founder Daniel Ek, along with special guests.”
Alrighty. So it’s time to start guessing:
There are a couple of obvious things that Spotify can add to its product lineup that I assume are in the works. In Europe, for instance, Spotify offers an MP3 store, so users can buy songs directly from the service instead of heading to iTunes or Amazon (and now, Google). But the U.S. version of the service doesn’t have one.
I also assume we’ll see an iPad app for the service at some point, but perhaps one that functions more like a remote control/console than a full-fledged client.
But neither one of those developments seems worthy of a press conference. And the company has generally avoided big launch events in general — when it rolled out in the U.S. this summer, for instance, it did so without ever putting Ek onstage. So, either the company has something truly big up its sleeve, or it is courting the risk of overpromising.

Via AllThingsD

Facebook Adding Music To List Of New Features

The world went from page me, to call me, to email me. Now its all about Facebook and a long list of social media websites. Facebook is dominating social media in many ways as it continues to grow and expand to new countries. While millions stay loyal to Facebook, there is no doubt they would go elsewhere if another platform creates the newest thing first. To stay ahead of the competition Facebook constantly creates new features that appeal to users and tap into new markets.

As Facebook introduced the world to clean design and community sharing, users made little fuss about the absence of music. Even if there is no complaints about music, it seems as if Facebook head honchos are working to provide users with new music features. This will work as a great way to keep users logged in and active on Facebook throughout the day. If the rumor is right these new features will also be a way for Facebook to enter the world of music sales and use its hold on the social media market to generate music revenues. If music sales are in the near future, Apple and its Itunes brand might be in for competition that is not so friendly.

Companies who do not carry the Apple brand should also consider Facebook to be competition. They may be running smooth now but they are directly in the sights of Facebook for good reason. Instead of creating competition for these smaller companies, Facebook has reached out and built a list of partnerships. Music based entities like MOG, Rdio, Spotify, and internet giant Rhapsody have all reportedly been named as partners of Facebook in its music venture. These new music features will allow users to download music, make playlist and also share songs with other users. It may seem like a win for Facebook but it is also a win for those companies who are working with Facebook.

These new music features will be welcomed with open arms by Facebook users. Even though insiders at Facebook have not opened up about these new music features, a program code that was found is proof of some kind. Rumor has it that Facebook will be showing off these new music features at its developer conference on September 22nd. The day these features hit the homepage you can be sure other social media websites will be buzzing with talk of Facebook.

Via Bosmol

Spotify Launches BlackBerry App

Social music streaming service Spotify has made its debut on BlackBerry with the preview release of its app for the platform. The company’s 6th mobile app is full of all the Spotify features that you’d probably expect to have access to from a mobile device.
You’ll have access to Spotify’s full catalog of millions of songs from your BlackBerry, along with offline playlists (music you can listen to without the need for a data connection). You can create and sync playlists; search for songs, artists and albums; and star your favorite tracks.
The app allows you to discover music in the “What’s new” and “Top tracks” sections, receive music recommendations from friends in your inbox and scrobble what you’re listening to on Last.fm.
It should be noted that, since this is a preview release, the app does not work on all BlackBerry devices. It has been tested on the following BlackBerry devices: 9780 Bold, 9700 Bold, 9300 Curve, 9000 Bold and 8520 Curve. At the time of this writing, the app only supports phones running on GSM networks — phones that are running on CDMA networks and the Torch 9800 are not currently supported. As with the other Spotify mobile apps, you’ll need a $9.99 per month Premium subscription to stream songs to your BlackBerry.
The move underlines Spotify’s continuing growth following its U.S. launch in July. Usage of the service rose sharply after it removed the need for you to have an invite to join and the announcement at the f8 conference last month that it was one of the launch partners for Facebook‘s music dashboard.
Although linking Spotify to your Facebook account (something that you now have to do when registering a new account) means that the songs you listen to are automatically shared with your friends on the new ticker, the music streaming service added a feature that allows you to stop sharing this information with your friends. The company recently announced partnerships with Western Digital and Boxee to let you stream music from Spotify through your TV using those companies’ media centers.
You can check out the preview version of the Spotify app by downloading it on your BlackBerry. Once Spotify has a final, fully tested version of the app, it will be released on BlackBerry App World.

By Kris Holt at Scribbal

Spotify And Boxee Let You Access Streaming Music Service From Your TV

Spotify and Boxee have teamed up to let you access the social music streaming service though your TV using the media center. The Boxee Box allows you to watch many of your favorite movies and shows that are online through your TV. The Spotify integration will now allow you to listen to your favorite music through Boxee too.
There is a caveat here, in that you’ll need to be a Premium Spotify subscriber to take advantage of the Spotify Boxee app. However, if you have signed up to the $9.99 per month Premium offering, you’ll be able to enjoy on-demand access to Spotify through your TV.

Spotify Opens Membership To Public, Gives Users 6 Months Unlimited Listening

Music streaming service Spotify has decided to retire its Spotify Open account and give every user 6 months of free, unlimited music listening. The news was first announced when CEO Daniel Ek spoke to Alexia from TechCrunch, but on Monday, Spotify released details of the new type of service.
Previously, Spotify Open was an exclusive version of Spotify Free. The company has decided to merge both the Spotify Free and Spotify Open accounts into one single type of account. From now on, all free users will simply have a Spotify account. After the 6-month period of free listening runs out, users who have not subscribed to Spotify Unlimited or Spotify Premium will be granted 10 hours of listening per month and 5 plays per individual song. Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Premium accounts will remain unchanged.
This news comes directly after Facebook announced partnerships with a number of music streaming services including Spotify at the f8 conference last Thursday. After rumors of a new music platform swirled, an idea the social network eventually canned, about a dozen music services have been integrated into Facebook’s new Open Graph – but Spotify integration comes at a price, at least for the users who expected to use the service as a stand alone app.
Spotify is now requiring all users to have a Facebook account. When you visit Spotify’s open sign up, you’ll be directed to a page that has pulled all of your Facebook information, if you’re logged in at the time. If not, you will be asked to login or create a Facebook account to gain access to Spotify.
Spotify’s Facebook integration will certainly help the service gain new users, but what about those of us who don’t want our every listen to be posted on our Facebook Walls and Tickers? It’s simple to hide in your preferences (go to Applications > Spotify > App Privacy > Only Me) but it still makes users uneasy. It actually dissuaded me from signing up for the service when my friends started using it post-integration.
Spotify currently has 3 levels of subscription: Spotify (free), Spotify Unlimited ($4.99 per month) and Spotify Premium ($9.99/month).
Will you still subscribe even if you have to link Spotify to your Facebook account?

REPORT: Spotify Has 1.4M US Users, 175,000 Paying Subscribers

Since Spotify launched in the US last month, the service has grown by leaps and bounds. After just one week, it reportedly had 70,000 paid subscribers. Now it has been reported that around 1.4 million Americans have signed up to Spotify even though the free version of the service is still invite-only.
According to All Things D, 175,000 of those users are paying subscribers, which is a conversion rate of 12.5 percent. It is not clear how many are paying for the $4.99 unlimited Web plan and how many are paying for the $9.99 premium subscription, which includes access to Spotify from mobile devices.