Snowcrashing

Spotify To Napster, Like Amerigo to Columbus?

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

Columbus – which America celebrates today – was a disruptor but he didn’t really know to what extent. He dared challenge the ocean for 36 days, and landed on what he thought was India. He lived with that belief. And changed history forever, for the better or the worse.

It was supposedly Amerigo Vespucci, who realized that it was a new land, and the German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller, named it after him: America.

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The new age of streaming is officially here.

Posted on 19. May, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

Napster started the music revolution 10 years ago with its file-sharing network. Today’s announcement on the roll-out of a $5 subscription for 5 downloads and unlimited streaming might not sound as epic.

But the fact of the matter is that it officially sanctions the shift from Downloads to Streaming.  From Ownership to Access.

We are not yet into the full-fledged Access Era as depicted by Caraeff and Masnick with interactive listening and your library in the cloud.

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Weekly Digest on the Music Industry – May 17, 2009

Posted on 18. May, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

BREAKING NEWS

French National Assembly Adopts 3 Strikes Law

iLike Launches Custom iPhone Apps, Syndication Platform To Help Artists Connect With Fans

Imeem About To Expand iPhone Music Storage By Way Of The Cloud

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OPINIONS AND REPORTS

Seth Godin: Another View Of Free

Bruce Houghton: Despite The All The Gloom And Doom I’m Still Optimistic About The Music Industry

Is the Long Tail really long?

Not just a matter of semantics:about “pirates” and “theft” in the music industry.

Spotify CEO interview ortability and subscriptions to a social music experience as key future developments.

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Weekly Digest on the Music Industry – May 2, 2009

Posted on 03. May, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

BREAKING NEWS

A week dense of social networks ‘ announcements

FACEBOOK COLONIZATION

April 28th is a date to remember. Facebook launched the Open Stream API: it’s the start of the Facebook experience extending beyond the Facebook walls. Now any developer can create new applications incorporating the real-time stream.

One of the first apps to take advantage of this new API is Seesmic Desktop.

Another example is a demo of Silverlight+ Facebook Stream, that has wowed the lucky Techcrunch viewers: Microsoft Shows Off The Power Of Facebook’s New APIs

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Weekly Digest on the Music Industry- April 12, 2009

Posted on 13. Apr, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

BREAKING NEWS

ONE BILLION DOWNLOADS FOR THE APPLE STORE

Apple’s numbers are worth noting, because the company reported 800 million downloads just a month ago, and hit half a billion back in January. iTunes, on the other hand, took two years to reach that number of songs downloaded. The all-time top 20 apps sees Facebook and Google Earth climbing past Pandora to become the top free apps, followed by Pandora, Tap Tap Range and Shazam. [VentureBeat]

TRENDS

SPOTIFY CEO INTERVIEWED BY THE GUARDIAN: MUSIC FANS WILL BUY MUSIC

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Weekly Digest on the Music Industry -April 5, 2009

Posted on 05. Apr, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

BREAKING NEWS (SORT OF..)

-Google launches a free ad-supported music service in China with the blessing of the labels. [WSJ]

TRENDS

-Why buy when you can listen free?

- The agreement between Spotify and 7Digital sparks a debate on the mixed streaming-store business model.  Glenn Peoples at Billboard views Lala as a possible winner because of its more focused user experience. [Billboard]

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Spotify new business model

Posted on 04. Apr, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

Since its launch in October 2008. Spotify has been getting lots of plaudits from users and bloggers.

From TorrentFreak to  TechCrunch, the service seems to have impressed people who have tried it with its speed, usability, and depth of songs. Spotify seems to be the new European Mecca for music.  Yes European only, since it isn’t officially available in the U.S. yet (though a Digg commenter did provide a way for people to try it out Stateside, at least temporarily). Right now it can be accessed in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

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