spotify

NEW YORK -- Spotify now has 5 million paid subscribers around the world, a number that includes 1 million U.S. customers, the company said today. It has 20 million active users worldwide, said CEO Daniel Ek.

At a press event here, Ek said that the company hit 1 million U.S. paid subscribers in a year when it took others a decade to accumulate that amount. That seemed like a thinly veiled shot at Rhapsody, one of the oldest music subscription services.

Among the news items from the event: Metallica announced that all its music is now available on Spotify.… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- From Peter Ha: What it was like launching The Daily.

- The importance of album track order in the Digital Age.

- Psy estimated to receive only $61,000 from Korean digital sales revenue for "Gangnam Style."

- Pizza Hut gives back with pizza-scented perfume.

- Verizon patents DVR box with camera in it.

- PA High School's "Gangnam Style" parody dubbed "Worst Video on the Entire Internet."… Read more

I was probably one of the last people in our great land who regularly purchased CDs. After Spotify landed on our shores, however, I finally stopped the practice of buying them, instead relying on Spotify and Pandora for my listening pleasure. I enjoy both services, and now with a Chrome extension called Pandora to Spotify Playlist Converter, I can get the two talking to one another, to a degree.

The conversation is one-sided. That is, the extension helps you move tracks from Pandora to Spotify. Specifically, it lets you copy links for tracks you've liked on Pandora and paste … Read more

The new Myspace has had a tough first year and is again looking for funding.

According to Business Insider, a little more than year after Interactive Media Holdings -- which is mostly owned by the Vanderhook family -- took control of Myspace, the company has lost more than $40 million on $14 million in revenue this year.

Myspace expects to lose another $25 million in funding next year, according to the documents. Meanwhile, the company is out looking to raise $50 million in investment, says Business Insider.

Too much shouldn't be made about the losses, as the new Myspace … Read more

Unlike Pandora and Last.fm, Spotify has relied on actual clients to deliver music to its subscribers. Whether you're on the computer or a mobile device, Spotify has apps that will let you listen to your tunes, change stations, etc. However, this doesn't always work if you're using a computer that isn't yours, or you detest adding yet another app to your devices.

As an extra streaming option, Spotify is rolling out its Web player to user accounts. The Web player is located at http://play.spotify.com, but if you don't have access, you … Read more

Spotify is close to closing a $100 million financing round that would value the company at a little more than $3 billion, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

The capital would come from multiple investors, including Goldman Sachs, although the Journal did not identify who the other investors were.

CNET has contacted Spotify for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

In a funding round last year, the music-streaming service raised about $100 million from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Russian investment firm DST Global, to give it a $1 billion valuation. More … Read more

Music listening patterns continue to evolve and not just from analog to digital but from downloads to streaming, according to findings from Internet research firm, NPD.

For the quarter ending in June, the audience for Internet radio services in the United States, which include companies such as Pandora Media, grew 27 percent from the same period a year earlier, NPD reported. In comparison, on-demand services such as Spotify, YouTube and Rhapsody, grew 18 percent over the same period.

Web radio stands to be an important money maker and it's not hard to figure out why the music sector and … Read more

Is $10, or the price of a few Starbucks lattes, really too much to pay for an album? Is $10 really too much to support musicians well enough they'll want to record more music? I still play LPs I bought when I was a teenager, and I can't think of anything else I still use from that part of my life. Those records are, if anything, more valuable to me now then they were then. I'm old enough to remember when record companies were freaking out about kids making cassette copies of albums, but producer and engineer … Read more

A couple quick housekeeping notes before we dive into today's deal...

First, I've heard one too many complaints from readers about 1SaleADay's slow shipping and poor customer service. I've asked the company to comment on these issues, but have yet to receive a response. Until I do, I won't be sharing any more of its deals. I'm not saying you shouldn't patronize the company, only that you should expect slow shipping and little-to-no information about your shipment.

Second, I get a quite a lot of reader mail, and I apologize that I can'… Read more