Spotify Redefines Music - Again

"We want music to be like water -- available everywhere, available seamlessly," Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek.

There has been much interest of late at reviewing the difference between the digital journey’s of books and music. We wrote about this some 5 years ago in the Brave New World report and although the media have evolved the roots of the divide were clear laid many years ago and the divide very clear. However, there is much to learn from other media and today those smart guys at Spotify delivered another lesson in digital evolution in a press event in New York.

Spotify announced the birth of a redefined social media platform based around full member participation, added value supplementary content and what can be best described as a music platform which would make iTunes look sterile and clunky and Amazon a music shop -full stop. Along with Spotify’s on demand model the platform could not only change music but the commercial model of digital music for all. Sounds grand and overstated and the only thing potentially standing in their way is the music business itself, which would be an irony given the opportunity potentially on offer and the dire position of the current model. The other potential issue is whether developers will build apps for the platform

Spotify are releasing a new API (application programming interface) that will let developers create apps coded in HTML5, and powered from within the Spotify app. Spotify will add a section called the "App Finder" on the left side of its landing page. Spotify is also building its own new features which include ‘favorite friends’.
It’s like the democratisation of music and the creation of new ways to share music, reviews, information, lyrics, concerts tickets etc. It would enhance the subscription service adding a significant number of optional features that will be invisible to users who just want the vanilla version. Publications such as The Rolling Stone are on board and its co-founder Jann Wenner states that the service is “really just the perfect companion to read about the stuff you want to hear as you hear it.” Rolling Stone plans to ctreate playlists for release on Spotify. Last.fm are to provide an app that lets members share their songs with each other, see what other members are listening to and display album covers. Hovering over an album cover in both the Rolling Stone and Last.fm apps will trigger them to play one of the album's tracks. Another app, from Songkick, shows users what concerts are playing in town. It uses their playlists as the base to recommend concerts they might be interested in and displays the locations of those concerts. The location display includes a Google Map.

The list of partners at the launch was an impressive gathering of players; Last.fm, TuneWiki, The Guardian, Dagbladet, We Are Hunted, Soundrop, Top10, Billboard, Fuse, Gaffa, Pitchfork, ShareMyPlaylists, Tunigo, Songkick,and MoodAgent. Now imagine you are a musician and what you could do on a platform that today has 2.5 million subscribers and growing and is both established in Europe and the US.

The jury is still out as to what this will mean to the relationship with Facebook nwhich has helped Spotify’s growth but if they remain coupled then it is easy to envisage mutual benefit.

Despite the recent removal of some indie labels Spotify’s 15 million legally-licensed songs must offer a significant opportunity for app developers to create a music platform which would be difficult to emulate and could actually move music fully into a on demand world and change how we pay, listen and relate to all things musical.

Spotify Plans and US Entry?

Our favourite music streaming service, Spotify, which has more than a million UK users and provides a legal alternative to unlicensed file-sharing services and enables artists, record labels and music publishers to receive royalties, has announced it plans. They are working on an iPhone application, but also wants to make the service available on other handsets. The mobile service will be only available to paying subscribers.

They also aim to improve sound quality, enabling new releases before they hit shops, more social networking features, exclusive tracks, behind-the-scenes material from big-name artists and merchandising such as T-shirts, concert tickets and vinyl will be sold to fans as they are listening to their favourite band. Spotify are working on a deal with Last.fm to provide song recommendations and making it easier for fans to find acts they like.

Spotify is currently available in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Spain, but now plan to take the service to the US.

Spotify Convergence?

When we want to listen to music our first choice today is to click to Spotify set up our playlist and relax. The UK and Swedish free ad paid online streaming service is like having your own individual radio staion.

Today the service is limited to broadband connection via a PC but that is about to change. Spotify, are reported to be develop the service offer to smartphone devices such as the iPhone. Spotify declared their intent by a search for a ‘Director of portable solutions’ and also a ‘Symbian 60 developer’.

Imagine music on demand anywhere, anytime on any device and ask why you would buy music? or i by Spotify, as the move that clearly depicts company’s intention to launch mobile version of its music streaming services.

Comes With Music

The music business is being constantly redefined by access and free to play. It seems an age since we first wrote about the SprialFrog service in the Brave New World report and the service is now live in the US. Others have followed the model and the most significant of these is Nokia with its ‘comes with music’ service.

They have clearly separated the content from the format from the device. Their focus is to sell mobiles and maintain their share of this huge market. To do so they must offer services that others can’t but unlike the iPhone’s lock in to service carriers Nokia is agnostic and will play with them all.

Nokia, is the first mobile manufacturer to push heavily into content but others will follow. Last week they struck a deal with Sony BMG to offer their catalogue to that of Universal which they secured last December.

Importantly Nokia, have decided to differentiate themselves by allowing users to keep all the music they have downloaded during their contract.

Nokia sold 146 million music phones last year and if all of those had included the "Comes with Music" bundle, just an extra $20 per phone would make Nokia's service bigger than the total digital music market. The sales of their 5310 and the 5610 top music models alone, were more than 4 million during the first quarter of 2008.

Ironically, the record labels hope that Nokia and others start to challenge the dominance of Apple's iTunes but the question remains whether they are merely bouncing from one offer to another devoid of strategy or have a master plan to restore their ailing businesses.

Now we must start to rethink who is the natural service, platform and what business model will work for the digital content we call books.

Nokia Want the Music Consumer

Nokia plans to offer unlimited music downloads. The world's biggest mobile manufacturer has announced a deal with Universal that will effectively give customers with certain phones unlimited access to millions of tracks for a year and allow them to keep the music afterwards. The other major labels are in discussions to follow Universal.

So will this latest lurch by the record companies challenge the previous pay-per-track sales model? What will be the impact in the relationships between the carriers and phone manufacturers? Who will own the consumer, Nokia, the carrier, the record label, the advertisers or the artist?

So it ends up free illegal downloads and sharing versus relatively free legal downloads. The consumer certainly is the winner here, but what about the artist, the writerand the cost of development?

Research firm Understanding & Solutions estimates that mobile music is around 13% of global music retail value and that the mobile music market should grow to $11 billion by 2011.

Nokia's new venture is due to start in the second half of 2008 and no doubt the game will have change again by then but what is clear is that Nokia have taken the music market and flipped it upside down. They are positioning themselves for a fight with Apple and the mobile carriers and record companies are mere pawns in this may muddy the waters but to-date, unlike the Nokia-Universal offer, customers cannot burn their music or transfer it onto a PC, meaning it is lost after the contract expires. They can only share music with other MusicStation customers while their contracts are current.