YouTube is a video streaming company that was launched in May of 2005 [2]. The company is a website that allows people all around the world to watch and share videos. They have sports videos, music videos, gaming videos, live streaming, and so much more [3]. YouTube has been utilized by individuals and by large companies as a platform to distribute content. YouTube currently has more than 1 billion users and 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Until recently, YouTube made a majority of its money through advertising before and during the videos on the site. In 2006, Google bought YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars [4]. Under the deal, YouTube was able to remain an independently operated entity and a separate brand. The original founders of YouTube were Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim who were all early employees of PayPal[2]. The current CEO of YouTube is Susan Wojcicki, but Chad Hurley, one of the original founders, still serves as an advisor [5]. YouTube has opened up channels of communication and allowed for an easier way to distribute media more directly to the public.
KEY EXECUTIVES
Source: Susan Wojcicki Twitter, Susan Wojcicki – CEO, YouTube [6]
Source: Robert Kyncl Twitter, Robert Kyncl – Chief Business Officer, YouTube [7]
Source: Politic365, Chad Hurley – Founder and Advisor, YouTube [8]
As a company, YouTube’s financials have been protected by their parent company, Google. There has been wide speculation about whether YouTube actually makes a profit. In 2014 an anonymous Wall Street Journal source reported YouTube’s revenue for the year at roughly $4 billion and profit at break even [9]. YouTube was a large investment for Google. It has been estimated that it won’t be long before YouTube makes up to 10% of Google’s total revenues [10]. During Google’s Q2 2015 conference call, the new CFO, Ruth Porat, was evasive regarding questions to clarify YouTube’s financials. Porat did not share YouTube’s financials because she felt it could put the company at a competitive disadvantage. Colin Gillis, an analyst for BGC Partners, believes that Google is now in the stages of refining and preparing YouTube’s financial performance so when they do finally reveal those numbers, Wall Street will be pleasantly surprised [9].
On October 28th, 2015 YouTube launched its long-discussed paid subscription service, YouTube Red. The service will cost $9.99 a month and have ad-free versions of YouTube videos. There has been speculation about a service like this coming for a long time because of the financial issues that YouTube is faced with. YouTube has all the factors for success, but reportedly only breaks even with their revenue. This new service will allow subscribers of YouTube Red to save YouTube videos for offline play, listen to videos in the background while browsing other mobile apps and watch all YouTube videos without ads. YouTube stars like PewDiePie, Lilly Singh and the Fine Brothers will be creating videos that are exclusive to this new program. Music is also a large component of YouTube Red.
Source: Connect Socialyte, Collage of YouTube’s Top Creators [14]
The service will be providing access to Google Play Music and a new app called YouTube Music, which offers a personalized playlist based on a starting song or artist, this style is very similar to Pandora. YouTube Red is charging prices very similar to potential competitors like Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video and Hulu[12]. YouTube also announced that they would be shutting down their Music Key beta, just a year after launching. Music Key was YouTube’s first attempt at a subscription service and offered users full album streams and offline listening for $7.99 a month. The service also included access to Google Play Music. Music Key was not successful, and never made its way out of beta. YouTube Red is the company’s second attempt to overcome the issues that were evident in Music Key’s model and break through any streaming service barriers [15].
Source: TechCrunch, ESPN Pulling Videos From YouTube due to Red [16]
YouTube Red contains a large amount of promise to fix YouTube’s financial woes, but there has been controversy over how YouTube has gotten creators to agree to be a part of the service. YouTube has stated that 99% of creators have signed on with the Red deal but has also been accused of giving creators no choice, either getting on board with the service or having their videos removed from the site. ESPN has had the most public battle with YouTube over the service. With rights issues surrounding their content, ESPN had to pull almost all of their videos from YouTube. Eleven of ESPN’s thirteen YouTube Channels were impacted and had their content pulled from the site [16].
YOUTUBE’S MOMENTUM & FUTURE
Even with the issues facing YouTube and the fallout coming from YouTube Red, the company’s future seems bright. YouTube now reaches more 18-49 year olds than any
single U.S. cable network and the average YouTube mobile session is 40 minutes. The number of hours people spend watching videos is also up 60%, which the fastest growth YouTube has experienced in 2 years [17]. Ever since YouTube officially became “mainstream” in 2009 with Congress and The Vatican launching their respective YouTube channels, the momentum in pop culture has only increased. YouTube launched Vevo, a music video channel, then announced that movies could be rented from YouTube starting in January 2010. As YouTube gained notoriety projects were launched on the site such as the It Gets Better project and Kony 2012. YouTube has pushed the importance of
Source: It Gets Better Project, It Gets Better Project Logo [19]
original content and been revolutionary in the likes of live-streaming. YouTube was the first company to show a live-stream of the 2012 Olympics. YouTube has pushed the boundaries and the strides can only point to a successful future [2]. YouTube has big plans to stay ahead of everyone else in the field, and to turn their large audience numbers into real, tangible profit i.e. YouTube Red. One of YouTube’s other big projects for the future is to provide YouTube access to anyone, anywhere. No matter what kind of connection, they want YouTube and its content to be streamed everywhere. YouTube has worked very hard to improve their tech. To continue improving it, YouTube has built new codecs, participated in developing new versions of HTML, and
Source: Buzzfeed, YouTube Rainbow Logo Celebrating Marriage Equality [20]
worked narrowly and closely with internet providers to make sure people are getting the best picture possible. These upgrades will never stop for YouTube, because this is what it takes to stay ahead and that has always been one of their biggest priorities. One of YouTube’s other resolutions as it moves to the future is a greater focus on “creators” rather than the one hit viral wonders that helped give YouTube its notoriety. These creators have built large fan bases and are in large part to thank for the increased viewership and subscriptions which is what is making YouTube so successful. These creators are also crucial to make sure that YouTube Red is successful, exclusive content on the service from these creators will only draw more fans to pay for the service [21].
SOURCES
[1] YouTube Logo. YouTube. Retrieved: November 29th 2015.
[5] Ken Parks- Chief Content Officer & Managing Director USA
SPOTIFY OVERVIEW
[6] Spotify’s sleek interface layout for their multi-platform service.
Spotify is a privately-owned, digital music streaming service that provides on-demand access to tracks. It is available on multiple platforms, including computers, mobile, tablets, and home entertainment systems. Originally founded in Sweden in 2006, Spotify launched in the United States in 2011; it is now available in 58 markets. [7]
Spotify offers listeners the free model, “made possible by ads,” and the premium model for $9.99 monthly, which is ad-free, high-quality, and available offline. [8] With over 20 million songs, over 20,000 tracks added daily, and over 1.5 billion playlists, Spotify has accumulated 10 million active users and a total of 40 million active users. [9]
COMPETITORS
Rdio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Google Play Music, Beats, iTunes Radio, Music Unlimited, and Xbox Music are worthy contenders in this competitive space. Product reviews assess service quality with major factors include song catalog, user interface, support, and features. [10] Each racing for a market share, these top players in the market are making strategic ploys to stay afloat.
On November 12th, Youtube announced their own streaming service, Youtube Music Key for $9.99. It will be interesting to see how it will affect the music industry when it fully hits the market in 2015. [11]
In early March 2014, Spotify acquired The Echo Nest, a big data company to enhance the music discovery feature, forcing Rdio, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, and Vevo to look elsewhere for a discovery algorithm. [13]
THE SPOTIFY STRATEGY
Spotify has successfully targeted college students, establishing a solid audience base and brand loyalty. With personal information confirming their status, Spotify offers students Spotify Premium for only $4.99. [13]
[13] Spotify engages their target audience: college students and 18-24 year-olds.
COLLEGE CASE STUDY
Spotify’s tenacious grasp on college students’ listening is reflected in their recently released research report of the Top 40 Musical Schools in America. The findings are a close study of the musical norms in the schools.
[14] Detailed graphs document music-genre distribution and listening spikes, showing not only what students listen to but also how they listen.
The data that Spotify is able to collect can be utilized for targeted advertising and marketing campaigns today. Moreover, with such a large following of the developing youth, Spotify is not only able to make significant advancements with the invaluable information about today, but accurate inferences about these soon-to-be adults tomorrow. [13]
Spotify launched their #thatsongwhen campaign with advertising agencies Ogilvy & Mather and David to further engage their millennial base. #Thatsongwhen allows users to tie their emotional experiences to their favorite songs, to create, and to tell stories. The customization, personalization, and interactivity of a musical experience attracts and retains a young crowd. [15]
The stories are media clips that are charged with emotion, and of course, music. Don’t Go Chasing Girls is about a man’s early memory of his childhood crush that is easily triggered with TLC’s hit song, Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls. Stories and songs are updated and posted on a live feed.
1. The dubbed Video Takeover, only available on desktops, allows brands to takeover the screen during 15-30 second advertising breaks.
2.The dubbed Sponsor Sessions forces mobile users to view a 15-30 second video on their mobile devices in order to proceed onto 30 minutes of uninterrupted streaming. [16]
[18] McDonald’s format and utilization of Spotify’s advertising product – Video Takeover.
SPOTIFY PARTNERSHIPS
VODAFONE
Everything is going mobile, and music is no exception. This rapid trend of playing and streaming music from a smartphone is particularly prevalent in Australia. Due to these recent findings, Vodafone Australia has partnered with Spotify to bundle in Spotify Premium for free with their monthly plan. A Spotify Premium subscription generally costs $11.99 Australian dollars each month. The exclusive offers with Spotify vary, and are known as the Red Plans. [19]
[20] Research shows that 1.5 million Australians stream music from their mobile devices.
Vodafone believes that Spotify Premium’s features complement and maximize the use of their faster network speeds, value plans, and expanding 4G network. Both the companies and the listeners are benefitting from this collaboration as the marriage of these digital services follow consumer trends and meets consumer needs. [21]
CARPLAY
Apple Carplay is an a new feature configured in select 2014 vehicles. Spotify is on board for this innovative ride as it has updated and fixed some bugs for this new multimedia system. [22] The music player allows users to access their Spotify accounts using a compatible iPhone. [23] With a built-in display to play music, Carplay is an exclusive and luxurious market; the Ferrari FF is one of the few select cars with Carplay. Several automobile manufacturers, however, are making an effort to include and support this system in the future. [24]
[24] Spotify collaborates with Apple Carplay to incorporate music services in the latest car models.
UBER
Uber is a hip taxi service, and Spotify is a hip streaming service. These two successful startups partner up for a new listening experience. Passengers can link their custom playlists to Uber vehicles for a fun ride. Although this new feature has started off in ten cities, it makes a big splash in the car service industry and the music industry. This partnership allows both companies to co-promote their respective brands and to change with the times. The service is for Spotify Premium account holders. [25]
[26] Spotify and Uber modernize the standard cab-ride as they join forces to create a new listening experience.
SPOTIFY CONTROVERSY
Taylor Swift pulled her entire catalogue from Spotify’s music database as she believes that it does not fairly compensate artists. [27] As a popular musician, her bold move and her public statements rejecting the streaming business model has made headlines for weeks. Fans and critics are responding to her decision with distaste as both parties point out that there are other viable services, such as Youtube and SoundCloud, to play her music. [28] While she recently accepted the first-ever Dick Clark Award for Excellence at the 2014 American Music Awards Ceremony, she added another snide comment jabbing at Spotify and streaming services again. [29] Jason Aldean has followed Swift’s footsteps, and pulled his new album Old Boots, New Dirt from Spotify. [30]
Spotify executive, Ek, combats this frenzy and reports that artists that use Spotify to promote their music actually sell more, and that Spotify has returned over $2 billion to music industry today. Top artists like Swift are set to project over $6 million in revenue a year. [31] Despite the financial debate and moral controversy, the Spotify team still hopes for Swift to change her mind. [32]
[33] Taylor Swift is a firm believer in the value of music, and that it should not be free. Swift has pulled her music catalogue from Spotify.
It is unlikely that many artists will join Swift’s banning of the digital streaming business, as it is the digital age. Reports confirm that streaming services grew 28% in the first half of 2014. [26] Listeners’ habits changed; artists can sink, but digital streaming services will swim.
SPOTIFY: LOOKING AHEAD
Despite the recent controversies, Spotify has achieved success with their recent collaborations; the student discount and the partnership with Vodafone have led Spotify subscriptions to increase by 42%. [28] Spotify Family Plan has launched with popular demand and proven financial success with previous discount deals. The plan allows subscribers to add four family members to their account for half the price. [34]
Spotify’s name is globally recognized, and Spotify’s services are well integrated into the new digital age. Its key strategies and partnerships keep it on the bleeding edge of the music industry.
[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:
[4] Spotify Founders- Daniel Ek & Martin Lorentzon
[5] Chief Sales, Marketing, and International Growth Officer- Jeff Levick
[6] Chief Content Officer & Managing Director USA- Ken Parks
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. 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.
[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 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].
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].
[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 andcollecting 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].
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.
Rdio, Inc.
1550 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: 415-763-7211
Website: Rdio.com
Company Overview
Rdio is a privately-owned online music streaming service. Skype founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström launched the company in 2010. Rdio is now available in over 35 countries. The service is ad-supported but users can opt for an ad-less subscription for $9.99 per month. Rdio can be accessed via the internet, desktop client, mobile app, and some in-home entertainment services (ex: Roku, Sonos.) [1][2]
Scott Bagby, Head of Strategic and International Partnerships
Finances
Rdio is a privately owned company and does not disclose their financial information online. Assumptions about the company’s financial well-being can be concluded from news published online. Rdio laid off approximately 35 employees (1/3 of the staff) this past November. A spokesperson for the company said the offs were in order to create a more efficient cost structure and to promote a sustainable business model. This insinuated that Rdio’s finances were weak. However, in March of 2014, Spotify acquired Dhingana, an India-based music streaming service for an undisclosed amount. This indicates that Rdio is trying to expand and must be doing better financially. [4] [5]
Competitors
Paying subscribers of top streaming services. Image courtesy of Digital Music News.
Rdio is not the only streaming service fighting for domination in the United States, in fact, their market share is very small compared to competitors (but, their numbers are still growing.) Rdio has many domestic and international competitors. The graph to the left shows the number of paying users for a variety of streaming services. Rdio has less than one million paying subscribers, however, this does not include “freemium” users. These numbers can far surpass the amount of paying subscribers. Rdio’s data is not public but for a comparison, Spotify has over 6 million paying users (as of November 2013) and over 24 million total users. The “freemium” accounts are ad-supported and subsidize artist royalties. Rdio’s main competitors in the United States include Spotify, Pandora, Beats Music, Slacker, and Sirius XM [6][7][8]
Shazam Partnership
In 2012, Shazam, a music recognition service, partnered with Rdio to allow users to listen to Shazam’d tracks via Rdio . However, this partnership was only available in select countries. In late 2013, Rdio and Shazam announced the expansion of this service to over 29 territories including Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, and many more. It is important to note the significance of this expansion because the Rdio/Shazam service is now available in countries where competitors like Spotify are not (including Canada, Chile, and Czech Republic.) [9][10]
Mobile Integration
Tesla Motor’s in-dash touchscreen display
As streaming services become increasingly popular, more services are emerging and fighting for domination in the market (think iTunes owns the digital download market). This creates more competition between the services and they are scrambling for ways to gain users. Streaming services have been partnering with cell phone providers to increase their customer base. Beats Music partnered with AT&T for a discounted family price and Spotify announced a partnership with Sprint. However, Rdio is going a different route. After being turned down by Spotify, American car company, Tesla, announced a partnership with Rdio in Europe . Gigaom reports “…consumers will be able to play any song from Rdio’s catalog of 20 million or so with a simple voice command,” the service will be integrated in the car’s dashboard system. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk says the service will be available very soon. It is unknown whether or not Tesla will use Rdio as their default music service in the US market. Tesla currently has a partnership with Slacker Radio in the US territory. [11] [12]
Above is a photo of Tesla Motor’s in-dash touchscreen display. The Rdio client in the in-dash display will likely mirror the iPad application. This will ensure a positive and easy user experience.
Dhingana Acquisition
The Rdio lay-offs in late 2013 indicated that the company was struggling financially. However, it seems that the streaming service is doing better because they had sufficient funds (although we do not know the exact number) to purchase the Indian music streaming service: Dhingana.
Dhingana was founded in 2007 by brothers Snehal & Swapnil Schinde, and Sushil Choudhari. Dhingana primarily streams genres of Indian music boasting a catalog of over one million songs in 42 languages. Dhingana has other Indian competitors including Saavn and Gaana. Dhingana has approximately 10.5 million monthly users; the acquisition will add significant traction to Rdio’s numbers.
Smartphone sales growth. Image courtesy of The Guardian.
Dhingana announced the acquisition on March 14, 2014 via their website and shut down the service. According to the press release, the Dhingana team will be working with Rdio to launch the service later this year. Rdio CEO, Anthony Bay, was quoted in Billboard Magazine, “India is a tremendously vibrant market for music and culture and one of the largest and most important in the world,” Bay’s strategy seems to be to expand their service in emerging markets, like India . Part of the Schinde brothers and Mr. Choudhari’s initiative at Rdio will be to expand into other emerging foreign markets.
This acquisition was a brilliant move on Rdio’s part. Recently The Guardian reported that India will pass the United States in smartphone sales this year, “India will be the country where the largest proportion of smartphones sold will go to new users,” this creates a larger market for potential streaming users. The map above shows significant smartphone growth in Brazil, Indonesia, and China; it will be interesting to see what territories Rdio will expand to next. [5][13] [14]
Rdio Drops The Echo Nest
The Echo Nest is a music intelligence company that provides data to a variety of music industry entities. All of the competitors mentioned above (with the exception of Beats Music) use The Echo Nest to power music recommendation features on their platform. In March, Spotify announced that they acquired The Echo Nest. Following this, Rdio announced they will no longer use The Echo Nest’s service. Anthony Bay was quoted by The Verge saying: “As far as we are concerned, they were a good partner, but we have other good partners and we’ll move on… So we will stop using that source of data and use other sources.” . Rdio’s decision to unsubscribe to The Echo Nest can pan out to be either a unique, positive change to the service or, depending on the service they choose to work with, can damage the company’s reputation. [15]
![Source: Behance, Google Logo 2015 [11]](https://bejone03.expressions.syr.edu/trf235/files/2015/09/google.jpg)
![[1]](https://bejone03.expressions.syr.edu/trf235/files/2014/03/spotify-logo-primary-horizontal-dark-background-rgb.jpg){kind=logo}
![[6] The most updated visuals of the Spotify application on thee platforms](https://bejone03.expressions.syr.edu/trf235/files/2014/03/overview.jpg)
![[2] Spotify Founders- Daniel Ek & Martin Lorentzon](https://bejone03.expressions.syr.edu/trf235/files/2014/03/daniel_ek_and_martin_lorentzon-5.jpg)
![[5] Chief Content Officer & Managing Director USA- Ken Parks](https://bejone03.expressions.syr.edu/trf235/files/2014/03/kenparks.jpg)
![[7] Head of Content- Steve Savoca](https://bejone03.expressions.syr.edu/trf235/files/2014/03/Screen-Shot-2014-04-16-at-8.56.10-PM.png)
