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Spotify

Posted on by 
By Hannah D Friedland
[1]

[1] Spotify’s Logo

THE SPOTIFY STORY:

[6] The most updated visuals of the Spotify application on thee platforms

[2] The most updated visuals of the Spotify application on thee platforms. Users have an on-demand stream of music on their computer, mobile device, tablet, and home entertainment system.

Spotify is a music streaming service that puts users in control of 20 million licensed songs [3]. Spotify was launched in Sweden in 2008 and came to America in 2011.

Spotify is financially a private company that offers over 20,000 new songs each day from major and independent labels including EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal, & The Orchard [3]. Artists earn royalty when their music is played, and there are over 24 million active users currently in 55 markets [3].

There are two revenue streams, free, which is “powered by advertisers” and premium for $9.99 monthly with extra features including no ads, offline, and high-quality audio [3].

TEAM SPOTIFY:

[2] Spotify Founders- Daniel Ek & Martin Lorentzon

[4] Spotify Founders- Daniel Ek & Martin Lorentzon

Chief Sales, Marketing, and International Growth Officer- Jeff Levick

[5] Chief Sales, Marketing, and International Growth Officer- Jeff Levick

 

[5] Chief Content Officer & Managing Director USA- Ken Parks

[6] Chief Content Officer & Managing Director USA- Ken Parks

[7] Head of Content- Steve Savoca

[7] Head of Content- Steve Savoca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INSIDE SPOTIFY:

Social Media Merges with Music- Songs, playlists, and albums can be shared on the Spotify application through the "Send To" message option, or users can "post to feed" to their Facebook timeline, Twitter, and Tumblr within the Spotify application. ARROW

Social Media Merges with Music- Using the “send to”, or “post to feed” options users can message music to friends and post music to their Facebook timeline, Twitter, and Tumblr within the Spotify application. Source:  Spotify

 

Spotify gives its users the option to connect with their social media Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts. Users can create collaborative playlists, share music, view friends music and more which provides for ample music discovery and publicity for the company on social media platforms. There is also a private session users can activate.

 

 

Two other elements that Spotify includes are apps and Discover. While these apps add dimension to the Spotify journey, Discover is essentially a constantly updated news feed.

Discover- Spotify's "news feed" feature on the desktop application, artists are recommended, concerts nearby are posted, friends listening habits are shown all based on listening habits the user has shown. Source: Spotify

Discover- Spotify’s “news feed” feature on the desktop application. Updates with releases, playlists, artists recommendations, concerts nearby are posted, friends listening habits are shown all based on listening habits the user has shown. Source:  Spotify

COMPETITORS:

Spotify is a strong contender, but it’s competing neck and neck with Rdio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Google Play Music, and Beats on price, catalogue, platforms, and features [8]. Beats Music entered the competitive on-demand music market in January [9], and is Spotify’s biggest challenger.

Beats vs. Spotify

[10] Beats Music vs. Spotify- The two streaming services are extremely similar with the same catalogue size, the discovery element, and price.

Beats entry in the market put Spotify in “go-mode”.

SPOTIFY’S SITUATION:

Competitor streaming services are continually emerging. With more choices presented to consumers, Spotify has responded by shifting their focus to partnerships, acquisitions, customer satisfaction, and updated product development. The formula is to attract users to Spotify, engage with users, and retain them.

Partnerships

Last.fm

Last.fm is a music recommendation service. In January, Spotify and Last.fm teamed up to bring a beneficial on-demand playbar to Last.fm’s website. This makes it possible for Last.fm users to internally play the entire Spotify catalogue on Last.fm’s website [11].

The collaboration works in both companies favor. Last.fm users have a fuller experience with the power, “to play whatever you want by whoever you want directly on Last.fm” [12]. In addition, Spotify’s catalogue incorporation provides a huge presence and Last.fm users conveniently have motivation to signup for Spotify to take advantage of the essential music player.

The Last.Fm playbar

The Last.Fm Spotify playbar at the bottom of Last.Fm’s website. Source:  Lastfm.com

SoundHound

Spotify also joined forces with SoundHound for the “Add to spotify” feature on its iOS application in February. SoundHound is a popular music-recognition app, similar to Shazam. Banded together, SoundHound is now more interactive. After linking accounts, with the tap of a button users can automatically generate Spotify playlists of recognized songs without leaving SoundHound’s app [13]. 

Source: SoundHound & Spotify

Hitting the “Add to Spotify” button automatically turns songs discovered on SoundHound into a Spotify playlist. Source:  SoundHound & Spotify

The mutually-beneficial relationship brings life to identified songs through Spotify playlists on SoundHoud, and the incentive to use the button will drive users to subscribe to Spotify while giving them presence on a music app [14].

Coachella

On top of that, Spotify was presented with an amazing opportunity to have presence on site at Coachella as the Official Digital Music Partner of the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in California in April. The Spotify Social tent was an on-site air-conditioned tent that offered relaxation pods, chargers, a “Mosaic Photo Booth” that uses your Spotify account to generate a picture out of your most played album art, and art from artist Apex [15].

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[16] The Spotify Social tent, that capped at 150, gave people an air conditioning experience filled with music, more battery power, art,  and a Mosaic Photobooth that puts your face on album covers based on your Spotify listening habits.

#WeWereThere was Spotify’s digital interactive strategy at Coachella to “connect, collect, share.” Implanted in every RFID wristband was the power to capture the experience by checking in and collecting custom Spotify curated playlists. The “My Coachella Story” digital snapshot let individuals create memories of their festival concert experiences with playlists gathered [16]. This collaboration not only transformed Coachella goers into premium users, but also created a special experience and built relationships by reliving the festival on Spotify.

[15] “My Coachella Story”- an example of a digital snapshot that shoes distance traveled, the path taken, playlists, artists seen etc. To participate users needed to simply connect their wrist band with their Spotify accounts, look for check ins at the festival, use the wristband to collect playlists and then after generate their digital card and share it with family and friends.

Sprint

Lastly, Beats launched with an AT&T package family plan deal. Rumors are circulating about Spotify planning to bundle with the #3 U.S. mobile carrier, Sprint [17] in April. This partnership will give Sprint customers a free trial. Customers will be able to pay for Spotify directly through their Sprint Accounts, which will help Spotify secure a greater market share and Sprint secure more data plans. Sprint and Spotify will announce the details on April 29th at a New York Event [18].

Acquisitions

In efforts to boost the “discovery” element, Spotify acquired The Echo Nest in March [19]. The Echo Nest is a music intelligence company that examines listening behavior and makes musical recommendations. Spotify paid $100 Million, with 90% Spotify equity [20]. The Echo Nest previously powered Rdio and Rhapsody, both of which ended their deals, deeming its technology invaluable to their operations right after Spotify acquired [21]. This potentially puts Spotify in the position to take The Echo Nest away from competitors.

Combing the two companies gives The Echo Nest a bigger audience and catalog, while Spotify, now with music-discovery data, will improve recommendation’s.

Customer Satisfaction

With intentions to obtain more paying users Spotify has updated its business model. In January the company announced free music shuffling on iOS with a catch, non-premium users ads play in between every few tracks [22]. In February, Spotify added the “repeat one” feature [23]. Repeat one grants users the option to repeat a single track over and over [24]. These highly requested changes illustrate that Spotify cares about users.

Working with a college students budget, Spotify slashed the premium $9.99 monthly rate to $4.99 in March [25]. They partnered with SheerID to validate eligibility. This price change is valuable because college students represent an important key demographic in streaming use [26]. This differentiates Spotify from other streaming services like Rdio and Beats that charge $10 monthly.

Unique Product Development

Competition among streaming services leads Spotify to completely redesign its user interface layout on all platforms. Spotify rolled out a sleek modernized look on April 2nd. This major design update was the first since its launch in 2008, and to keep current it was a smart move [27].

Spotify’s New Look Video [28] 

The new dramatic, dark color scheme highlights important buttons, includes circular images for people, and features square album shapes [29]. The browse tab is revised and categorized between top lists, releases, news, and moods. “Your Music”, a collection of users saved albums, songs, and artists is a new addition [30]. The Your Music addition mimics iTunes library and it is comparable to Rdio’s “collection” feature. It helps users save, organize, and browse through their favorite music. The new layout feels unified and balanced, and should attract new users [31].

WHATS NEXT FOR SPOTIFY:

Spotify is headed in the right direction, but with downloads declining, new rival services like YouTube, Apple, and Amazon that have huge user bases are joining the streaming market [32].

Being active puts Spotify in the forefront, which looks great for Investors. It is rumored that an IPO is in Spotify’s near future. Though the company has declined all comments, a job advertisement for an “External Reporting Specialist” has been posted on their website and LinkedIn [33]. Their future looks competitive but successful.

Sources: 

1. Spotify’s Logo 2014, Spotifypress.com, RT: 4/04/2014

2. Spotify’s Application on Three Platforms, Spotifyblog.com, RT: 4/01/2014

3. Spotify Press Fast Facts, Press.Spotify.com,  RT: 4/01/2014

4.The Founders of Spotify, Press.Spotify.com, RT: 4/01/2014

5.Spotify’s Chief Sales, Marketing, and International Growth Officer, Press.Spotify.com, RT: 4/01/2014

6. Chief Content Officer & Managing Director USA,Press.Spotify.com, RT: 4/01/2014

7. Head of Content, Press.Spotify.com, RT: 4/01/2014

8. “And The Winner Is… Best Music On-Demand Streaming Service”, Cultofmac.com, 2/18/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

9. “Beats Music Is Here”, Beats Music Blog 1/16/2014, RT: 4/08/2014

10. “Beats Music vs. Spotify: Can Dr. Dre outmix the king of streaming”, Digital Trends, 1/27/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

11. “Last.fm Bands up with Spotify to offer on-demand tracks”, CNET, 1/29/2014, RT: 4/04/2014

12. “Did Someone Say On Demand?”, Last.fm Blog, 1/29/2014, RT: 4/04/2014

13. “SoundHound Launched “Add to Spotify”, Business Wire, 2/21/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

14. “SoundHound Now Lets You Easily Add Your Discovered Music to Your Spotify Playlist”, appdevice.com, 2/24/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

15. “Coachella here we come” Spotify News, 4/7/2014 RT: 4/14/2014

16. “Spotify’s Coachella #WeWereThere Campaign: High Tech and Sweet, Sweet Air Conditioning”, Billboard, 4/11/2014, RT: 4/14/2014

17. “Sprint and Spotify Plan to Partner Up”, recode.net, 4/11/2014, RT: 4/14/2014

18. “Spotify, Sprint Plan Music Bundle To Be Unveiled This Month”, Billboard, 4/12/2014, RT: 4/14/2014

19.“Spotify Acquires the Echo Nest”, Billboard, 3/06/2014, RT: 4/02/2014

20. “Spotify Acquired Music Tech Company The Echo Nest in A $100M Deal” , TechCrunch, 3/07/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

21. “Rhapsody Kills its Echo Nest partnership following Spotify acquisition”, Venturebeat.com, 3/21/2014, RT: 4/09/2014

22. “Spotify’s free shuffle mode arrives on iPhone”, The Verge,1/08/2014, RT: 4/02/2014

23. “Repeat One”, Spotify News Blog, 2/07/2014, RT: 4/08/2014

24. “Spotify users can now repeat the same song over and over and over again”, Hypbot, 2/10/2014, : 4/02/2014

25. “Spotify Offers 50% Student Discount”, Hypbot, 3/25/2014, RT: 4/02/2014

26. “Spotify introduces 50% discount for college students”, Los Angles Times, 3/25/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

27. “The Good, The Bad, The Less Ugly: Taking Spotify’s New Redesign For a Test Drive”, Billboard, 4/03/2014, RT: 4/04/2014

28. Spotify Paints It Black with New Look, YouTube, 4/01/2014, RT: 4/06/2014

29. “Spotify’s biggest redesign ever brings long awaited Collection view”, The Verge, 4/02/2014, RT: 4/07/2014

30. “Spotify paints it black with new look”, Spotify News, 4/02/2014, RT: 4/08/2014

31. “Spotify beautifies”, CNET, 4/02/2014 RT: 4/08/2014

32. “Spotify faces challenge from Internet giants before IPO” New York Post, 3/30/2014, RT: 4/14/2014

33. “Spotify seeks to hire U.S. filings expert as bankers eye IPO” Reuters, 2/17/2014, RT: 4/14/2014

Twitter

Posted on by 
By Sona Kim
Twitter Logo

Twitter Logo [1]

1355 Market Street
Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94103

Executives:

costolo

Dick Costolo – CEO [2]

rowghani3

Ali Rowghani – COO [3]

gupta

Mike Gupta – CFO [4]

bain

Adam Bain – President of Global                     Revenue [5]

 

Company Profile

Twitter is a micro blogging and social networking platform where users can read and send tweets limited to 140 characters. It is currently the tenth most popular website worldwide and boasted 232 million users in this quarter alone. Over 500 million Tweets are sent everyday and 76% of active users are on mobile. [6] Looking at a US demographic, 16% of US adults use Twitter and one in ten adults get their news from Twitter. [7]

Twitter Demographics

Twitter Demographics [19]

History

Twitter was initially part of a podcasting firm called Odeo and became its own company in 2007. The company expanded its user base immensely during the 2007 SXSW Conference after successfully placing two plasma screens that streamed Twitter messages. [8] In 2010, Twitter announced that they would offer paid advertising, or “promoted tweets” which has become a major revenue stream for the company.

Sponsored Ad Example [20]

Financial Snapshot

According to newly filed financial documents, Twitter has a net loss $133.8 million this year compared to a $70.7 million loss in 2012. However, their advertising profits are quickly rising as the company collected $168.6 million in third quarter, for a total of $422 million in total revenue. [9] Twitter’s research and development costs are also growing immensely as the company believes these investments will turn into profit. R&D costs have increased a whopping 153% from last year alone.

Advertisements accounted for 85% of revenue in 2012 and this has increased to 89% in 2013. Another form of revenue for the company is data licensing, which allows clients to access user tweets and data. Twitter has made $47.3 million from selling user data in 2013, which is a 36.3% increase from last year. [10]

Nielsen TV Ratings

Twitter Social TV Stats [21]

In October 2013, Nielsen and Twitter announced a metrics system to gauge which television shows are popular. Initial research showed that for every 1,000 tweets, 50,000 people would see those tweets. There has also been a marked increase of live conversations about television on Twitter. Last quarter alone, 19 million people wrote over 260 million Tweets about live TV, which marked a 38% increase. According to an executive at Universal, “the potential value of Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings is that is provides a pathway for an advertiser to turn audience energy into brand momentum”. [11]

Vine

Vine is a video sharing mobile platform acquired by Twitter in 2012. The company launched the application in the first quarter of this year and Vine quickly became the top video sharing application. It is the fastest growing app in 2013 with a 403% growth rate. [12]

Vine Popularity [22]

Vine Popularity [22]

More notably, Dunkin Donuts aired the first Vine as a TV commercial in September during a preseason NFL game. This marks the first wave of integrative social media and television and will surely be a growth sector for Vine as other brands have begun to launch Vine campaigns, such as Nissan. [13]

Twitter and the News

One of the reasons for Twitter’s success is their ability to facilitate real time information, especially with breaking news. As a result, Twitter recently rolled out push notifications in November 2013 for breaking news. However, a random group of Twitter users received a push notification when they neither followed the @BreakingNews account or signed up for push notifications. [14]

Breaking News Push Notification [23]

Breaking News Push Notification [23]

Twitter has also expanded an account specifically for breaking news called @EventParrot, which is a new service that allows for personalized notifications. This is a very recent feature but it shows that Twitter is recognizing their strength as an immediate news outlet.

Spammers and Hackers

As an online platform, Twitter faces problems from spammers and hackers. The company estimates that over 11 million accounts are spam accounts. They announced in their initial filing that they were aware that a rise in users will also result in more spam accounts and that they will continue to terminate spam accounts as they find them. This year alone, there have been several prolific incidents of cyber hacking. Earlier this year, the company announced that over a quarter of a million users’ information may have been compromised. In another disturbing incident, the Syrian Electronic Army briefly gained control of one of Twitter’s domains. [15]

Competitors

Twitter’s major competitors include other technology giants such as Facebook and LinkedIn. While Twitter may have millions of other users, Facebook has over times more. Twitter gains almost $3 in revenue per user but this pales in comparison to LinkedIn’s $8. However, the market value of each Twitter user is $134.47. [16]

Average Revenue from Each User (USD$) [24]

Average Revenue from Each User (USD$) [24]

IPO – $TWTR

Top 10 Internet IPOs [25]

The major story for Twitter this quarter is their initial public offering. Goldman Sachs was announced as the lead underwriter on the deal and the company raised $1.8 billion from the IPO. As a result of the 70 million shares that Twitter issued, the company’s market value grew to a little over $13 billion. Twitter stock opened at $26 and rose rapidly on its first trading day and has settled to a low $40 range currently. [17] Twitter’s IPO marks the second largest Internet IPO after Facebook. The company opted to file its IPO on the NYSE, as NASDAQ is heavier with technology companies and is trading under the ticker name TWTR. Currently, analysts anticipate that Twitter will become profitable by 2015 as advertising revenue streams increase. [18] There has been some worry that Twitter is not profitable as it has posted net losses for the past three years. However, investors believe that Twitter has opted to go public earlier in its growth curve and has more opportunity to become profitable in the coming years.

Twitter’s Future

Expect Twitter Revenues [26]

As Twitter begins its first foray as a public company, there are many doubts that Twitter is just a fad and that their IPO will be overhyped and overvalued just like Facebook’s. However, based on growth expectations and expansions into news, Nielsen ratings and popular applications such as Vine, Twitter will surely be profitable by 2015. As social media becomes more measurable, Twitter stands to bring in higher revenue streams as advertisers begin to recognize the power of this social media platform.

Sources:

1. Twitter Logo Picture – http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=17977&d=1347540360

2-5. Executive Profiles and Pictures – https://about.twitter.com/company/leadership

6. Twitter User Stats – https://about.twitter.com/company

7. Twitter News User Stats – http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/04/twitter-news-consumers-young-mobile-and-educated/

8. Twitter History – http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/companyprofiles/p/Twitter-Company-Profile.htm

9. Twitter Financial Costs – http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/06/technology/social/twitter-ipo-price/

10. Twitter Spending Costs – http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/15/twitter-doubles-its-q3-revenue-but-its-aggregate-2013-loss-has-widened-to-133-8m/

11. Nielsen and Twitter Ratings – http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2013/nielsen-launches-nielsen-twitter-tv-ratings.html

12.  Vine Growth – http://www.b2bmarketing.net/news/archive/mobile-new-vine-named-fasting-growing-app-2013

13. Dunkin Vine Campaign – http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/dunkin-donuts-launching-first-tv-ad-made-entirely-vine-152267

14. Twitter Push Notifications – http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/twitter-tests-waters-breaking-news-push-notifications/

15. Twitter Hacks – http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-twitter-wont-tell-you-2013-10-25?pagenumber=8

16. Twitter Competitors – http://www.trefis.com/stock/twtr/articles/215695/how-does-twitter-stack-up-against-facebook-and-linkedin/2013-11-18?from=filmstrip%3Atop

17. Twitter IPO Factsheet – http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/interesting-numbers-twitters-ipo-20824494

18. Twitter IPO Info – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-06/twitter-raises-1-82-billion-pricing-ipo-above-offering-range.html

19. Twitter News Demographics- http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/04/twitter-news-consumers-young-mobile-and-educated/

20. Sponsored Ad Image – http://www.rebelcmc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/4573997468_222cebf8ff.jpg

21. Twitter Social TV Image- http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/files/2012/12/twitter-social-tv.png

22. Vine Popularity Image – http://www.b2bmarketing.net/news/archive/mobile-new-vine-named-fasting-growing-app-2013

23. Breaking News Push Notification Push – http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/twitter-tests-waters-breaking-news-push-notifications/

24. Competitor Revenue per Customer Graph – http://www.trefis.com/stock/twtr/articles/215695/how-does-twitter-stack-up-against-facebook-and-linkedin/2013-11-18?from=filmstrip%3Atop

25. Top Internet IPO Image – http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/MWimages/MW-BO775_top_ip_MG_20131107095949.jpg

26. Twitter Expected Revenue Graph – http://www.trefis.com/stock/izea/articles/215754/twitters-long-hard-path-to-profitability/2013-11-19?from=artPopin