spotify

Spotify's 2012 dominated by Gotye, Rihanna

Spotify has rounded up its 2012, and revealed that Gotye, Rihanna, and David Guetta had huge years on its service.

According to Spotify, the most popular track this year was Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" both in the U.S. and worldwide. Fun's "We Are Young" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" rounded out the top three most popular songs in the U.S. this year.

Spotify then turned its attention to artists, and discovered that Rihanna was the most popular female artist this year. David Guetta took … Read more

Spotify competitor Deezer sets sights on U.S.

Deezer, a Spotify competitor operating internationally, has set its sights on the U.S.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in an interview published today, Deezer CEO Axel Dauchez said that his company is "looking for a partner in the U.S." that would allow it to gain access to a "significant volume of subscribers."

It's not clear what Dauchez is looking for in a partner in the U.S.

Deezer's service is available in 160 countries. The company offers two free hours of ad-supported music streaming, but also has monthly plans ranging in … Read more

Roku adds Spotify, Vevo to its streamed channel offerings

Roku is getting its groove on to deliver music streaming service Spotify and music video service Vevo to living room TVs via its set-top boxes.

Available only to paying Spotify subscribers on select Roku devices, the new music streaming offering allows users to listen to music and manage playlists. However, Spotify says new customers can try the premium subscription free of charge for 30 days.

"Spotify wants to make all of the world's music available for people to enjoy whenever and wherever they are," Pascal de Mul, global head of hardware partnerships at Spotify, said in a … Read more

Spotify comes to TiVo

Spotify will now be available on TiVo Premiere, giving Spotify's premium subscribers access to its catalog of over 20 million songs via the set-top box.

TiVo users can sign in with an existing Spotify Premium account ($9.99/month) to stream music through their home theater system (or TV), as well as browse playlists, albums and artists, and search using the TiVo remote control.

TiVo is one of the first AV devices -- not including media streamers like Sonos, Boxee, and the WD TV Live -- to announce Spotify support. Samsung TVs announced Spotify support in October, but presently … Read more

Metallica joins Spotify, buries the hatchet with Sean Parker

NEW YORK--Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Sean Parker, one of the founders of file-sharing service Napster, made peace today.

In an unlikely detente, the two men joined Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, on stage during the streaming music service's press event here, more than a decade since their famous feud when Ulrich tried to get Napster shut down. More recently, it turns out that Ulrich and Parker share a love of Spotify and Ulrich announced that Metallica is now offering its catalog on the service.

Besides offering testimonials about how much they enjoy using Spotify, the two shared their … Read more

Spotify tops 1 million paid U.S. subscribers in one year

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

The 404 1,178: Where we engineer great thoughts (podcast)

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

Create Spotify playlists from songs you liked on Pandora

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

New Myspace sees big losses -- just like old Myspace

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

Enable Spotify's Web player right now

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