Spotify

Spotify freut sich im eigenen Blog über 20 Millionen zahlende Abonnenten:

Today, we have reached more than 20 million subscribers and more than 75 million active users. 10 million subscribers in our first five and a half years – and another 10 million subscribers in just a single year! That’s an average of one new subscriber every three seconds over the last year. Wow.

And, more people listening on Spotify means more payouts to the creators of the music you love. As we grow, the amount of royalties we pay out to artists, songwriters and rights holders continues to climb faster than ever. We have now paid more than $3 billion USD in royalties, including more than $300 million in the first three months of 2015 alone.

Mit der neuen Finanzierungsrunde kommt Spotify nun auf 23 Investoren, darunter unter anderem TeliaSonera, eines der größten Telekommunikationsunternehmen Europas, Goldman Sachs und klassische Risikokapitalgeber wie KPCB. Das ebenfalls aus Schweden kommende TeliaSonera hat allein 115 Millionen US-Dollar investiert.

Tech.eu:

Barely 48 hours since the Apple Music announcement and Daniel Ek’s less than impressed tweet, and it appears that Spotify have strengthened their war chest even further as the Wall Street Journal report that the Swedish streaming company have closed a $526 million round at a fresh valuation of $8.5 billion. 

Wie Quartz berichtet, hat Spotify begonnen mit Investmentbanken über einen möglichen Börsengang zu sprechen, der noch im Herbst diesen Jahres stattfinden könnte:

The popular music-streaming company has participated in informal chats with some of the investment banks likely to fight for a role in a potential IPO, sources familiar with the process said. The six-year-old service may start holding formal meetings as early as next month in anticipation of an offering in autumn. (Though the timeline for a possible IPO could change for a number of reasons, including unfavorable market conditions.)

Ein Börsengang würde notwendiges Geld in die Kriegskassen von Spotify spülen.… Weiterlesen

Bekanntlich existieren auf Spotify 4 Millionen ungespielte Songs. Das neue Werkzeug Forgotify macht diese ungespielten Songs sichtbar.

The Atlantic:

Forgotify is built upon a database that the trio created to crawl Spotify’s API for pieces with a play count of zero. Once a song has been played, it disappears from the site, rendering it oddly reminiscent of an old, archival audio cassette which, once played, may never play again. Playing it destroys it. (Except, of course, in the case of Forgotify, the songs still live on in Spotify proper.)

Vor allem ältere Musik wird von Spotify-Nutzern verhältnismäßig seltener entdeckt:

According to Jordan, a lot of Spotify’s undiscovered tracks are older: Newer music tends to get at least a few plays as it posts, but the backlog from decades past just sits on Spotify’s digital shelves, accumulating dust.