Spotify No Longer Just Music

When we look at the future of on demand and streamed media services the clue is in the word media. We are no longer shackled to thinking of vertical movie, music, games but media hubs that satisfy all under one subscription.

To bring the point firmly home Spotify has announced it is adding more non-music content to its app. The expanded service will include radio podcasts, news bulletins, video clips and moves their 60 million regular users which span some into a media one stop shop and they also have introduced a new running mode that matches music to the pace of the listener which is based on feedback from their smartphone's built-in sensors.

The news comes on the same day that The Verge disclosed the details of Sony’s Spotify contract and raised questions of whether the model worked in the best interest of the production companies, or the artists. The move is also intended to protect Spotify from competitive threats from Apple’s planned streaming service and YouTube’s expansion moves.

Spotify’s content partners include the BBC, TED, the science-tech talks organiser, Disney, Vice Media, comedy podcast The Nerdist and clips from Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls video channel. They will mix musicians and cooks in a show called Turntable.  

What is clear is that Spotify has a vision past music and one which if successful will help protect it from the new Spotify can provide music that matches a runner's pace.

The big question is whether Spotify’s 15 premium subscribers want and will use the extra services today and allow Spotify to float their service on the stock market.

Disney Looks to Join Hulu

The La Times reports that Disney are looking to go in with their rivals Fox and NBC and take a stake in Hulu.com. According to ComScore Video Metrix, which tracks online traffic, Hulu is attracting a large audience with an increase 42% up in February to 34.7 million viewers. Although it’s still significantly lower than YouTube, it is growing.

Disney have recognized that they have ‘to go where the people are’ and that ABC.com just isn’t strong enough. So potentially, Disney, Fox and NBC could each end up with 30%, leaving Providence Equity Partners retaining the remaining 10%. It would also leave CBS, which owns TV.com, outside.

The Hulu model has still to make the money needed to fund the costs of producing shows and still threatens to erode the value of established broadcast and cable channels. However, Disney would bring Hulu their content such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives," which in turn should fuel the larger audiences and may well help it towards a tipping point.

Childrens' Second Life?

When we think of children’s entertainment with think books, games, TV, toys, films etc. We often automatically think of the format before we think of the content itself. Is Peter Pan a book, game, film, cartoon, merchandise or all rolled up into one? How do children want to see their favourites, as books as films or as an ‘experience’?

We read today in the New York Times about the growing success of web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, were entertainment companies are building virtual worlds for children. Not only can they experience but they can participate and belong in a part online role-playing game and part social scene. These children’s versions of Second Life are proving much more popular and Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today.

More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342% from November 2006. Disney last month introduced a “Pirates of the Caribbean” world aimed at children 10 and older, and it has many themed worlds on the way. Nickelodeon, has the successful Neopets and is spending $100 million to develop a string of worlds. Coming soon are Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and worlds based on D. C. comics properties from Warner Brothers. Not to be left out toy manufacturers Lego and Mattel are entering the market along with many technology companies. There are now over 10 virtual worlds that involve caring for virtual pets.

Disney’s largest online world is Club Penguin, which it bought in August for $700 million and at the time it already had 700,000 members paying fees of $5.95 a month and delivering annual revenue of almost $50 million.

The interesting question all this activity throws up is what comes first? In olden days the books created the story that moved onto the film and then spun out to the merchandise but does this still hold firm? Will we see the virtual world coming first? What will be the impact on the development of new content and the trading of rights? Many questions will be answered by the money. We will always have books that go on to be successful films but will we have ‘worlds’ that go on to sell books?

Capture them Young

Scholastic is launching BookFlix, an educational Web site pairing short films based on popular picture books along with nonfiction e-books that allow early readers to follow the text online.
This starts to introduce multimedia content in the jacket and may show an animated film of a storybook, where children are able to turn pages, backward or forward, by clicking on an arrow on the lower right- or left-hand side.

Disney Publishing Group plans a similar project later this year, making favorites such as "The Jungle Book" and "Cinderella" available online and while Scholastic, is sticking to the school and library market, Disney will offer books to general consumers.

Some remain skeptical as to whether the children’s market is ready for ebooks and believe that a laptop device may be a more acceptable delivery device. But it is the content that counts and Scholastic and Disney are not standing still and waiting for the market to make up its mind.

BookFlix begins with 80 pairings, 20 of them also available in Spanish, with categories ranging from "Family and Community" to "Music and Rhyme." They are working with US schools, teachers kids in small groups and have received enthusiastic responses so far.

Imagine no more ‘read with mother ‘ but ‘click with mother’.