Is Spotify Trying To Be The Facebook of Music Industry?

Cloud Based Music Service - SpotifyIt’s fair to say that Facebook has revolutionized the concept of how a social network can leverage third-party apps to transform itself into a platform. In fact, I strongly believe that apps have played a crucial role in establishing Facebook as the world’s leading social network. It’s no surprise that other social networks such as Google+ are leveraging the concept of apps to bring games and enterprise apps to users.

However, cloud-based music services are a totally different ball game. It’s a keenly contested segment with biggies such as Google, Amazon, Apple and several niche startups such as Spotify contesting for supremacy. Smaller players such as Spotify realize that it’s not easy to compete with the biggies and hence they aren’t afraid to innovate in and try unconventional techniques to carve a niche for themselves.

To that effect, Spotify recently announced that it will add free Facebook-style apps to its streaming music service, partnering with Rolling Stone, pitchfork, Last.fm, Songkick, Billboard and CBS Corp.’s music-recommendation service. The idea is to transform from being a music app to a larger ecosystem to support broader interests including you would ever want to read, see, do or share around the music that fills your days.

Why?

The obvious question to ask – why is Spotify heading into unchartered territories? For a start, Spotify wants to attract developers to its API so they can help add new functions and features. From a customer perspective, it’s a win-win situation as they get access to several state of the art apps. Typical examples include a TuneWiki app that lets users read lyrics while listening to songs, while a Rolling Stone app brings playlists and articles into Spotify. A Billboard app turns the publisher’s “top 100” charts into playlists.

Spotify says this move will help differentiate itself from the growing competition from Google, Apple and Amazon.

Monetization

All apps will be free for paid as well as free Spotify users. At the moment, Spotify doesn’t plan to monetize its app platform. However, there’s a bigger interest at stake – improve Spotify without having to do the work itself. Instead, third-party developers add new features that keep current users happy. I’m sure it’s a matter of time before Spotify works out a revenue sharing agreement with developers.

All in all, an interesting move by Spotify to evolve from an app into a platform. Will it help Spotify compete with the big boys such as Apple, Google and Amazon? Time will tell. What do you think? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.

Total
0
Shares
27 comments
  1. The only app I’m concerned about is the one that shows artists getting paid on this platform. 

  2. I I love spotify, I’m a premium subscriber and I love the apps that they’re bringing in! For a music lover it’s great because I can create my own playlists, find others and listen to it wherever I choose. I dont have to worry about spending a bunch of money on music downloads which may grow extinct in a couple of years. (cassettes, cd’s) It’s well worth the $10 a month if you think about it this way! I really don’t need the actual download if I’m always connected. Plus with everything moving to the cloud, you’d have to connect to get to your music library anyways. In regards to the comment above about artists not getting paid, spotify mentioned in their press conference that they pay the artist every time a song is played. Power to spotify, I hope it succeeds and breaks through and ahead of the other platforms!

  3. I just want to mention I’m all new to blogging and seriously loved this web blog. Most likely I’m planning to bookmark your blog . You actually come with wonderful articles and reviews. Thanks for revealing your website.

  4. I was curious about if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your website? It is very well written; I really like what youve got to say. But maybe you can include a little more in the way of written content so people can connect with it better. You have got a great deal of text for only having one or two graphics. Maybe you can space it out better?

  5. A fascinating debate related to casino and betting agencies is definitely worth my comment. I think that you ought to publish more on this subject matter, it might not be a taboo subject but generally people do not speak about such topics.Casino internet betting it’s actually the most reliable and risk-free means to place your bets in these days. The signup bonuses and special deals are usually an captivating option for online poker. Most people will likely never get these kind of features in any local casino.

  6. I have got one recommendation for your website. It looks like at this time there are a few cascading stylesheet problems while opening a number of webpages inside google chrome as well as firefox. It is functioning fine in internet explorer. Perhaps you can double check this.

  7. I tried taking a look at your blog in my new iphone 4 and the page layout doesnt seem to be right. Might want to check it out on WAP as well as it seems most smartphone layouts are not working with your web page.

  8. After I initially commented I seem to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there a way you are able to remove me from that service? Thank you!

  9. If you dont mind, exactly where do you host your website? I am shopping for a good web host and your weblog seams to be extremely fast and up just about all the time

  10. I also like Flash, however I am not a good designer to design a Flash, but I have software by witch a Flash is automatically created and no extra to work.

  11. Jesus Christ there is plenty of spammy feedback on this web page. Have you ever before thought about attempting to eliminate them or putting in a tool?

Comments are closed.

Related Posts