Spotify just went free on Mobile. This is going to hurt.

Music streaming just got shot.

Spotify announced that its music streaming service will be free (yep, free) to mobile users. Now that's a real shot at Itunes Radio (which is free) as they prepare to launch fully. Other services will be really hit because you can't compete with free - only match it.

Spotify was previously 9.99 a month (spotify premium) but they did have a free version for desktop and laptop.

And they also announced to get more publicity, that they now had a whole lotta Led Zep online. For free. (Led Zep 4, cover above, is always thought to be their best moment btw).

The service will be supported by Advertising for revenue.

This will concern local radio stations with a music bias, who'll have difficulty in retaining online listeners too. 

Of course, Spotify will try to upsell you to ad-free versions and indeed other services such as 'on-demand'. But this is a breakthrough in the fight for listeners however, it's also a sign of a race to the bottom for all subscription services.

What's happening is, people are able or prepared to pay less so they're moving. If Spotify's subscription model was a roaring success, they wouldn't be doing this, trust me.

And will advertising pay for the music copyright fees and run the business? Difficult to see, but it is a model working for Facebook and starting to work for Twitter. 

One thing for sure though, it has killed the market.

Digital Radio rolls out globally. iTunes Radio has real potential to own this.

Without a doubt, the next wave is going to be Digital Radio.

We have music streaming services on monthly subscription and we have music downloads, now we'll have sophisticated digital radio with more than 250 DJ curated stations to listen to - for free.

And Apple will own it.

They launched the service in September (same day as IOS7 so it got little PR) across all devices including Apple TV, but only in the USA, for now. Already they're announcing plans to roll it out across Europe. UK, NZ, Australia and Canada were announced only yesterday.

It features in the Itunes store and thereby, immediately putting it in front of an audience of millions. 11 million listeners tried it in the first 5 days after launch.....

What it does in part, is to build pre-made stations around your music choices. So if you hear a particularly song you like, it will tell you the stations that have just played it. Therefore, they might be your kind of stations.

Or you might just want stations that play your favourite genre - Country, Jazz - it will bring you those. The more you listen, the more personalised your station becomes as you decide to make choices - for example, 'never play that song again' - and it won't. The more you listen, the more itunes knows the stations you love and the more it can play the music you love.

So you create your own station in effect, or a pre-made one created based on music you listen to or the music you buy. But there are text and audio ads built into the music and hence it's free although you can remove Ads by upgrading through a subscription. It already has Ad deals in place with P&G, McDonalds, Pepsi and Nissan to start.

It looks too like there's no streaming limits so in some ways it's head-to-head with 13 year old Pandora (Apple are beating them in their quick roll-out and music rights buy-outs) and Spotify, although different. 

Pandora may suffer and reports are that Pandora customers are switching over. However, Bloggers are critical of Apple for simply "copying Pandora". Something Steve Jobs was so critical of other brands doing to Apple.

Of course too, by listening to ITunes Radio, if you hear a song or artist you like, you can buy it there and then.

So it's encouraging music sales by giving listeners what are, free samples. Clever.

And without any doubt, Apple have the distribution, the brand, the financial clout to own Digital Radio globally. Which will have implications for traditional, local stations especially in a young, 14-26 demographic. Those radio stations will need to wake-up to this challenge and they can, by having one big advantage - local content.

Certainly in Ireland, Radio Media owners tend to be smart, bright people but the sudden impact of an Itunes Radio launch will require a response. Now's the time to formulate that because it's coming.

Be 100% sure of that.

Spotify. They've blazed a trail in music streaming and now face a huge challenge. So they turn to advertising and their first TV Commercial.

'We are Spotify, we are for music', sounds like the Pedigree Chum Campaign 'We are for dogs' and you can't help but see in Spotify's new, first, TV Campaign, influences from Apple advertising.

I have no understanding of their copyline either, "Music is worth fighting for"? Sounds like a copywriter trying to be evocative without making sense. 

However, the point is that this is Spotify's bid to get into US Homes through TV advertising, promoting its music streaming business before competitors enter the space. And the space is hotting up.

Apple, Amazon and most notably Google, are all primed to enter the Spotify space. Big players with big money.

Music Streaming is different to music downloading (as in ITunes) in that it allows you to listen to tracks for a standard subscription. 

Launched in Sweden in 2008, Spotify currently has over 20 million active members with about 6 million paying and has a valuation of circa 3 billion usd. So it's a relatively young start-up that has grown and has trail blazed a new segment of streaming music. All from a base in Sweden. Not bad at all really.

Its success hasn't gone unnoticed and hence they're now faced with big players coming into their market - always a problem for a start-up. If you're successful, others will follows. And hence therefore, this new TV Commercial to try to develop subscribers before the big boys get hold. Which is exactly the right thing to do, whether you like the commercial or not.

Spotify deserves the success either way. And turning to Advertising will help it now. But it's now faced with the challenge of its young life. 

Google to launch new Music streaming service. This giant is awakening.

Google really seem to have their heads up especially with the oncoming onslaught of glasses and their move into retail. It's almost like there's a new energy a Google, a new momentum?

According to the front page of this weekend's Financial Times, they're about to launch a music streaming service and The FT know because of the discussions taking place with big music labels. It will therefore compete with Deezer and Spotify.

Although there's an irony here because music labels didn't like google as they saw Search engines facilitating, music piracy.

Advertising accounts for about 95% of google's revenue so these type of services (and glasses) changes their revenue model to being based more on consumer income. No bad thing. 

Music streaming normally allows two price options - free, but be subject to advertising or, pay, and get premium music, ad-free service. With download you get to keep the tract and this "streaming" market is worth over 1.5 billion usd a year....at the moment.

Commercial music download concepts (like Apple's itunes) is different to streaming and Google already launched a US music download store in late 2011. They also have YouTube plans for subscription music services and others (such as travel, price comparisons and so on). 

Google can easily bring these services to the Nexus tablets and their Android phones (as Apple do with Itunes on iPhone). By scrutinising consumer habits and downloads, Advertising Agencies might be well prepared to get involved with this. It could be a valuable database.

But this will give Google another string to its bow. It seems a sleeping giant is awakening....and when it does, we will feel the roar.

Apple Iphone 5 about to launch. Their secret Iradio launched discovered. And this is much, much bigger.

 

Next week, Apple's CEO Tim Cook will unveil, what we now know, will be called The Apple Iphone 5. This is Apple's next generation phone to compete with Samsung's Galaxy S3 launched earlier in June and of course, facing possible bans in the US after Apple's victorious court case which I blogged about here: http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/08/court-ruling-apple-persist-samsung.html . 

It will also be compared Nokia's Lumia 930, launched this week, although the mobile phone pioneer, Nokia, has had its shares cut to "junk status". So hardly a competitor.

What we didn't know, was that Apple was secretly working on the launch of iradio, as big a gamble as itunes - but more of that in a minute.

The Apple Iphone 5 we know very little about except strong rumours. 

It's going to be taller than the current iphone with therefore, a taller screen and about 30% thinner. The connector gadget is getting smaller, with the connectors getting better, giving much faster wireless and ultimately, quick 4G connections. It's likely to have more RAM and a faster processor - so generally just a better phone.

More importantly, reports strongly suggest that Apple is planning its own internet radio service allowing it to compete in the music streaming business against people like Pandora, We7 (UK owned by Tesco) and Spotify.

What would happen is that people select tracks from a 'catalogue' and play them continuously via an internet feed or, more likely, it will feed you music based on your interests (as distinct from actually picking the track).

Rather than owning them or downloading them as in the itunes model, you get continuous radio based on what you like. 

Depending on whether Apple choose to go for the model where customers pick their tracks or instead, feeding them music based on interests, they will be a direct head-to-head with Pandora/Spotify. 

Spotify (where you pick your own tracks) loses money quite heavily due to music licensing issues whereas by feeding out music based on listener interests (Pandora), it has been much more successful.

Most of us know the type of music we like but don't know what we want. So developing internet radio based on a indication of preferences, seems to make sense. 

Other similar business saw share prices fall dramatically Friday, on foot of the news. Apple is such a good company, nobody wants to see it enter into the same space and even talk of Apple entering into online radio saw Pandora shares drop 18%. I think the radio option makes more sense (streaming you music based on your preferences) and indeed it's not that long ago when I chatted to Irish radio businessman, Dermot Hanrahan, who outlined exactly the same vision. Yet again, ahead of his time.

Online radio, iradio by Apple, will be a world beater and by being deeply integrated into their products, such as the Iphone 5, will guarantee distribution. Furthermore, if they get a lot of listeners to their iradio, it will also generate sales on itunes, as when listeners hear a track they like, they might want to buy it.

Great business.

Unlike the giants of old, Microsoft as a clear example, Apple do not sit on their hands. Innovation and invention precedes their greatness.