Spotify subscribers rose 29% year-on-year during the final quarter of 2019, reports the company. It now has 124M premium members, compared to Apple Music’s last reported number of 60M.
It was recently revealed that Amazon Music has a subscriber base somewhere close to that of Apple Music. However, Apple tends to only announce each 10M milestone, so the company could potentially now be closer to 70M.
Reducing the price of its flagship Oculus Go VR headset as it seeks to advance consumer take-up of VR.
TWITTER NEWS
Launched a new Reactions option in direct messages, which enables you to quickly add an emoji response to any message.
Updated the format of its TV show reminder buttons, which notify you when TV shows will go to air.
Tweet editing is looking less and less likely, with CEO Jack Dorsey now ruling out the option.
INSTAGRAM NEWS
Adding a new way to easily find and re-share Stories mentions of your profile.
Making it easier for creators to upload videos to IGTV.
GOOGLE NEWS
Now gathering topically-related searches that you’ve conducted in the past into defined collections, in order to make your search history more functional.
Expanded its mobile search listing format, displaying website icons and domain names, to desktop queries.
SPOTIFY NEWS
Testing a way for influencers post Stories to introduce their own playlists
Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, Post Malone, and Ariana Grande were among the most popular streaming artists of the year
In 2019, U.S. listeners passed the trillion-stream mark for the first time, according to Nielsen’s annual year-end report on the music industry. There were 1.15 trillion audio and music video streams in 2019—up 29.3% from 887.4 billion streams in 2018. Read the full report via Billboardhere.
Starbucks this morning announced the overall of its mobile application, now used by 17 million people, in an effort to create a more personalized experience for its customers. The changes rolled out alongside an overhaul of the company’s popular customer loyalty program, Starbucks Rewards, which is now doling out stars based on dollars spent in stores, rather than how often customers make purchases.
Here are the tell tell signs of yesteryear, remember when new technology emerged and we didn’t think it would touch physical CD sales, so the industry ignored it till it was too late? We might want to learn this lesson faster…
Nielsen Entertainment analyst Dave Bakula chalked up the declines in downloads mostly to “a shift in the way consumers are consuming music,” noting that total streams on services such as Spotify and Pandora Media Inc. were up 46% for the year to date, compared with the same period last year. Streaming services now account for nearly one-third of the revenue from recorded music in the U.S., according to the RIAA.
There was note of big albums coming in the next few weeks that might change the percentage a bit, but this is no surprise as we give music away to draw attention and the music streaming services are getting cheaper. (Spotify dropped prices with family plan).
Artist need to keep the eye on the ball and remember your live ticket sales, merchandise as well as your overall brand need much attention to keep revenue streams flowing.
Watching more services popping up for you to decipher what you are listening to in any environment. This iOS and Android app currently supports over 20 services, including Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. We find this a great opportunity to reach out to your fans no matter what service they drawn to. Something worth keeping your eyes and ears on!
iTunes may be the largest sales portal for digital music (legitimate that is) However with mobile devices diversifying and apps growing on non apple devices your new radio station might be an app that drives your sales.
Now with Amazon in the streaming game you will want to ramp up your Amazon specials and placement. It might not be iTunes but it HUGE Prime subscription service will have new eyeballs and ears on your artists catalog. Check out all the details and call us if you want ideas how to jump on the bandwagon.
You can now buy T-shirts, records, and other merchandise from your favorite artists within music-streaming service Spotify.
Ask us how you can get started using this service and how we can manage it for you.
Been there, streamed that, bought the T-shirt… you can now buy shirts, records, and other merchandise from your favorite artists through music-streaming service Spotify.
Turns including Beastie Boys, Banks, Grateful Dead, Bon Jovi, Deadmau5, and much-trumpeted new arrivals Led Zeppelin have been first to offer swag in Spotify over the last month, and the feature is now open to any artist to sign up and start selling anything they want, from wristbands to vinyl records, right there on their profile page.
Clicking on an item shows you a preview image and then takes you to the band’s online store, wherever that may be. Merchandise is available to buy if you’re listening to Spotify in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland.
Any band or artist can add a merch stand to their profile within the Spotify app. They can only offer three items at a time, but on the plus side there are no fees: neither Spotify nor Topspin — which provides sales and marketing software to artists — take a cut when a fan drops some cash on a new shirt, poster, or album.
Topspin has a similar deal to offer merchandise through forthcoming rival streaming serviceBeats Music, which is set to launch on Tuesday.
As digital music — and with it, music piracy — has eaten into the money made from selling music, other ways of making money have become increasingly important. Revenue streams such as merchandise and live concert tickets are two big ways for artists and labels to make money — and both can now be browsed and bought through Spotify. READ MORE
