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Vevo is planning to launch a music video subscription service
Vevo's done a lot of work over the last six months to improve its app ecosystem. First, the music-focused video service totally rebuilt its iOS app; it then brought those updates to Android and launched its first Apple TV app. They certainly made the Vevo experience better -- but after using YouTube Red and YouTube Music, using an ad-supported music video service felt like a step backward. Based on comments made yesterday by Vevo's CEO Erik Huggers, however, it sounds like that'll change soon.
Bandcamp lets artists create their own music subscriptions
Thanks to Ms. Swift's recent actions, artist compensation from music streaming is quite the hot topic, and one company has a new option to lend a hand. Bandcamp has been a choice for musicians to sell their music and merchandise for years, and now it's looking to help sort streaming subscriptions as well. Each artist will be able to create a subscription-based plan for their music, allowing fans to access new tunes as they become available through the Bandcamp app. Listeners can download the tracks too, and acts can decide to offer parts of their existing catalog as a perk for opting in. New albums or songs can be released to subscribers only for a certain amount of time or remain exclusive, and the musicians themselves can set the cost of the plan. For its efforts, Bandcamp takes the same 15 percent cut that it does for regular sales -- a fee that drops to 10 percent once the $5,000 sales mark is reached. "The whole motivation here is that when you get to a point that you love an artist -- when you go from liking them to being a real true fan of theirs -- at some point you just want everything they make," the company's chief executive Ethan Diamond told The Guardian. [Photo credit: Shutterstock]
Google Play Music All Access makes its European debut in nine countries
Three months after Google Play Music All Access debuted in the US and a month after it launched Down Under, the music subscription service has finally made its way across the globe to Europe. Well, to nine European countries at least. According to Google's support page, it's now available in Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and the UK. As with the other countries, there's a promotional offer to help you get started. If you sign up for the 30-day trial before September 15th, you'll only need to pay £7.99 or €7.99 a month after that. If you decide to wait however, the monthly subscription cost goes up to £9.99 or €9.99. No word yet on when the service will roll out to the rest of the world, but we're sure the folks in Mountain View are hard at work making sure it does. After all, it has quite a bit of catching up to do.
Slacker reinvents itself: simpler, more approachable internet radio
If you were a fan of Slacker's old-school black and gold aesthetic, you can mourn its passing today. The internet radio service has just undergone a rebirth, with a brand new white and burnt orange logo and a completely revamped design -- on web, mobile and Xbox -- in an effort to reintroduce itself to the mainstream and stave off competition from the likes of Pandora, Spotify and Rdio. The new look is decidedly simpler and more approachable, with a prominent search box and a distinct blue and white theme that carries its way throughout all interfaces. Indeed, the smartphone apps are explicitly designed to mirror the site, not just style-wise but functionally as well. For example, it'll cue up the next song on a station or a playlist when you switch devices. The pricing structure remains the same -- there's a free ad-supported version, a Radio Plus $3.99 a month option and a $9.99 per month Premium plan. The new iOS and Android apps should be available today, with Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 versions to come. For more on the relaunch and a few thoughts from Slacker's execs, join us after the break.
Rdio begins paying artists $10 for every user they attract
Streaming music services have a bad reputation when it comes to paying their artists, who only earn a few cents each play. Rdio is trying to remedy that (and grow its subscriber base) by paying songsters $10 for every user they personally attract that stays around longer than a month. Brendan Benson, Scissor Sisters and Snoop Dogg Lion have already signed up, but it's not just for big names, any musician with an Rdio account can join -- tempting us to upload our Lady Gaga covers played on the Sousaphone in the quest for some of those rockstar riches.
Spotify director Sean Parker: Apple tried to keep Spotify out of the United States
Daniel Ek (co-founder of Spotify) and Sean Parker (Director at Spotify) just took the stage here at D10, with Walt Mossberg asking the two about the company's impact in America, negotiations with record labels and -- perhaps surprisingly -- its links with Apple. Outside of confirming that there's still around 10 million Spotify users worldwide (with around three million of those being of the paid variety), the duo also confirmed that it's working daily to improve the catalog. Said Ek: "We're up to 18 million songs, growing at 10,000 or 20,000 songs per day -- it's very much a growing catalog." Walt was curious as to why iTunes had upwards of 30 million tracks, and why all of the services simply don't have the same library, but both players were quick to brush off the topic and pivot directly to the importance of playlists. Ek stated: "If you look at iTunes, the vast majority of songs haven't been purchased by anyone -- it's driven by hits. We see 80 percent of our whole catalog listened to." Following that, Parker contributed: "The playlist is now the CD. It used to be a few songs were wanted by the consumer, and the rest of it was garbage. It's the new mixtape, but accelerated on a massive scale." As it turns out, Spotify actually sells "bundles" (which are glorified playlists) as pay products in Europe, and when Walt asked why these weren't available in America, Parker obliged: "We just haven't released it yet." In other words, they're coming soon.
Beats Audio is buying MOG music streaming service
Looks like the rumors were all too true -- according to All Things D, Beats Audio is picking up MOG. For those unaware, MOG is yet another music streaming / subscription service, and while the feature set bests even the vaunted Spotify in many ways by including a Pandora-like playlist generator, it's had a tough time procuring the same hype machine. Regardless, there's no more hiding under the radar now, and you can bet that anything with a Beats label on it will soon be using MOG as a musical pillar (hello, HTC Sense?). We're reaching out for comment and will update when we can.
Slacker intros Premium Radio subscription service, makes Radio Plus look like Basic Radio
Internet radio provider Slacker is bulldozing the thin line dividing itself from subscription-based music services today, with the launch of Premium Radio. The new pricing tier joins the existing gratis Basic Radio and ad-free Radio Plus plans, adding an all-you-can-eat music model akin to services like Rhapsody and Rdio. Subscribers who shell out $9.99 a month receive all of the features of the $3.99 Radio Plus users, plus unlimited access to eight million songs, letting them listen to what they want, when the want, and generally play god with the site's existing radio services. Premium Radio also gives you on- and offline access to music on a number of mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, and BlackBerry handsets -- not to mention unlimited bragging rights to all of your broke friends who are still rocking the Basic Radio plan. Don't feel too bad for 'em, though -- at least they didn't get suckered into slotRadio.
Sony's Music Unlimited service infiltrates France, Germany, Italy and Spain, offers streaming tunes
See this message? You no longer have to if you live in France, Germany, Italy or Spain, as Sony's rolled out its Music Unlimited subscription streaming service in each aforementioned nation just yesterday. Basically, it's the same deal that launched in the UK last month, but at a slightly cheaper price given the exchange rate: €3.99 a month buys you a virtual radio station that streams millions of songs to your Sony TVs, Blu-ray players or PS3 -- with portable devices and phones on the way -- while €9.99 upgrades to a premium plan that lets you select tunes on demand and generate playlists. Next stop: North America. PR after the break.
Rhapsody now available to all comers on Android
Following a limited beta, Rhapsody is using the occasion of its newfound independence from RealNetworks to launch the public version of its Android-based client. Technically, this is still a beta that we're dealing with here, so the big difference is that anyone that wants to download and use it is more than welcome to -- it's not the on-the-downlow affair we were dealing with before. Folks new to the all-you-can-eat subscription service are welcome to check out a trial for 7 days, after which point you'll be paying the same $10 a month for access from one device or $15 for access from up to three that everyone else pays -- arguably not bad for a 9 million song library, assuming you've got a taste for anything other than live Fugazi bootlegs.
Vodafone wields largest base of music subscribers in Europe
You might think that a dedicated player like Napster or Spotify would hold claim to the largest base of customers for subscription-based music services, but quite the contrary -- it's actually megacarrier Vodafone, which offers access to around 2 million DRM-free tracks at a variety of price points in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK, a library that it says will grow to some 6 million in 2010. Universal, Sony, Warner, and EMI all have deals in place with the carrier -- probably one of the big reasons they've been able to amass so many subscribers, a number that currently stands around 450,000 spread across eight markets. Granted, compared to iTunes, half a million users still isn't much of a market driver -- but if nothing else, it seems to validate the business model, give carriers a big voice in the content distribution conversation, and serve as a testament to the fact that users are considering phones of all brands and platforms to be viable music players.
Report: Nokia's Comes With Music not selling very well in the UK
After hearing initial reports that Nokia's Comes With Music subscription service was doing "okay," word on the streets is now... even less good. According to estimates released by Music Ally at an Association of Independent Music conference in London, Nokia's gotten about 23,000 subscribers to the service since it launched last October. That's not a great number, if it's anywhere near accurate... though Nokia has "refused to confirm" whether or not it is. Tim Grimsditch, head of Nokia's product marketing division added that it's "a very new business model, we're live in five markets and the numbers only mention one. We're going to continue to develop the model and fine tune how we market it." That said, the report can't be terribly heartening either way you slice it, and is rather reminiscent of N-Gage's niche market status if you ask us.
Nokia's Comes With Music service said to be selling "okay"
It's a tough time to be selling mobile phones, let alone mobile phone add-ons, and that's evidenced by a recent report that Nokia's Comes With Music service is simply doing so-so. A Financial Times piece on Nokia's ability to survive the current economy briefly mentions the CwM service, quoting an unnamed source as saying that "initial sales had been okay, but not earth shattering." Not surprisingly, it was presumed that many budget-strapped consumers were shying away given that most of their favorite tunes could be acquired gratis via the intarwebz. Still, we can imagine this gaining way more traction than its foray into handset gaming, but the refusal of the major UK carriers to stock CwM-equipped handset sure isn't helping matters.[Via mocoNews]
Napster going DRM-free
They had already been considering it and now it's official -- Napster will be converting its entire downloads catalogue to 100% DRM-free MP3s (innit funny how things come full circle?) in Q2 of this year. With all track and album sales offered exclusively in MP3 format, the company obviously hopes to attract a certain crowd heretofore locked out of its business model. While the subscription service will remain a core focus, Napster execs are surely hoping to see an uptick in their direct download sales when those teeming iPod and iPhone hordes come knocking second quarter.
