Comments on: Spot If I am right about the future of Spotify. http://www.maxtb.com/2010/04/19/future-of-spotify/ Tell me something I don't know. Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:19:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mark http://www.maxtb.com/2010/04/19/future-of-spotify/comment-page-1/#comment-305 Mark Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:05:59 +0000 http://www.maxtb.com/?p=607#comment-305 I'd suggest looking at http://rockproper.com/ - free music distribution site where full albums / LPs can be downloaded. The late Jay Bennett of Wilco was a contributor here, so the business model of music for free can work. The issue I see with Spotify is the business model behind it. For the artists providing the music which ultimately drives the service forward, the return from Spotify is very small compared to other vehicles for their product to be delivered. Everyone has probably read the Lady Gaga example, but this link - http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ - is also another good resource. Spotify has to overcome the gap between "music is free" and "music has value" or it runs the risk of not filling the middle ground between huge established artists with back catalogues that fund their current work, and the musician-as-amateur that only makes music for the love of it. This may be stretching the argument a bit, but looking at the current economic model and blog arguments that are ongoing, this middle ground - those artists that are up and coming, and those music fans that are looking for this kind of artist - is going to be the worst served by the evolution of how music as a product is being delivered. And Music-as-a-Service? You're showing your IT PR roots :) I’d suggest looking at http://rockproper.com/ – free music distribution site where full albums / LPs can be downloaded. The late Jay Bennett of Wilco was a contributor here, so the business model of music for free can work.

The issue I see with Spotify is the business model behind it. For the artists providing the music which ultimately drives the service forward, the return from Spotify is very small compared to other vehicles for their product to be delivered. Everyone has probably read the Lady Gaga example, but this link – http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ – is also another good resource.

Spotify has to overcome the gap between “music is free” and “music has value” or it runs the risk of not filling the middle ground between huge established artists with back catalogues that fund their current work, and the musician-as-amateur that only makes music for the love of it. This may be stretching the argument a bit, but looking at the current economic model and blog arguments that are ongoing, this middle ground – those artists that are up and coming, and those music fans that are looking for this kind of artist – is going to be the worst served by the evolution of how music as a product is being delivered.

And Music-as-a-Service? You’re showing your IT PR roots :)

]]> By: Duncan http://www.maxtb.com/2010/04/19/future-of-spotify/comment-page-1/#comment-304 Duncan Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:04:03 +0000 http://www.maxtb.com/?p=607#comment-304 Music as a service is important, but Spotify seems to have shirked away from it over the past 6 months. Where once the company would issue a small update every month or so, there's been no significant desktop functionality added for a long time now. The only recent update has been the (long-awaited) addition of scrobbling for the iPhone app, which bizarrely hasn't yet been rolled out to Android customers. Comments recently made by CEO Daniel Ek suggest that he doesn't like the release early, release often model so beloved of the likes of Google, instead favouring big releases very infrequently. As a result, the next version of Spotify is probably somewhere far away for Europeans - most likely being held back for a release that co-incides with the launch of the US offering - which keeps getting delayed and delayed. Its communications strategy has changed significantly too - to a more arrogant Apple-y "don't talk to anyone ever, unless you have to" approach. While Spotify's great, it's certainly not perfect. There's a hell of a lot of functionality that users want from it, which it's not delivering. That's a problem, and it's starting to affect its fans. Music as a service is important, but Spotify seems to have shirked away from it over the past 6 months. Where once the company would issue a small update every month or so, there’s been no significant desktop functionality added for a long time now. The only recent update has been the (long-awaited) addition of scrobbling for the iPhone app, which bizarrely hasn’t yet been rolled out to Android customers.

Comments recently made by CEO Daniel Ek suggest that he doesn’t like the release early, release often model so beloved of the likes of Google, instead favouring big releases very infrequently.

As a result, the next version of Spotify is probably somewhere far away for Europeans – most likely being held back for a release that co-incides with the launch of the US offering – which keeps getting delayed and delayed.

Its communications strategy has changed significantly too – to a more arrogant Apple-y “don’t talk to anyone ever, unless you have to” approach.

While Spotify’s great, it’s certainly not perfect. There’s a hell of a lot of functionality that users want from it, which it’s not delivering. That’s a problem, and it’s starting to affect its fans.

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