Online Music

Spotify gets $100M, including $10M from Coca-Cola

Want a coke with that $3 billion valuation? Spotify apparently does: The company just raised an additional $100 million in funding, with Coca-Cola being one of the more notable new investors. Coke has been experimenting with digital music for some time.

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How vinyl records & big data make Spotify sound better

Record collectors have been using Discogs.com to catalog and trade their wares for years. Now, much of that user-submitted data is finding its way to Spotify and other online music platforms, thanks to a partnership between Discogs and the music data provider The Echo Nest.

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Spotify plays its most requested tune: an iPad app

While Spotify has been churning out news, one question kept popping up: when are we going to get an iPad app? Well, Spotify is finally obliging, giving premium users a polished iPad version that it hopes can rule the living room.

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Spotify partners with Coke to expand international reach

Spotify is partnering with Coca Cola in a deal that it says will expand its international reach, giving it a boost similar to the way Facebook integration has supercharged usage. Coke will use Spotify to power its music outreach and will help promote the service internationally.

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Music fans meet Raditatz, Pandora for your neighborhood

A new Pandora competitor called Raditaz combines customized online radio stations with location. Users can see what stations others are listening to in their neighborhood and even geotag stations specific to their gym or office. Raditaz built the service with a team of just seven.

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What’s next for Spotify: How about the web?

The web has been abuzz with speculations about a mystery Spotify event next week, with many arguing the service will launch a download store. But given its recent growth spurred by Facebook, I’d argue a web-based player would make more sense.

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Indie labels quitting Spotify. Trouble in paradise?

Spotify had a fairy tale beginning as a startup. Like some of its peers, Spotify is changing how we consume media. And that change is putting the service at odds with indie labels and artists who believe that Spotify is going to leave them penniless.

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Pandora: A journey undertaken for love, not money

Nearly eleven years after Tim Westergen and his colleagues started Pandora, it began trading on the public markets. Westergen has been through hell and back and his story is no different from any entrepreneur who dares to try to capture lightning in a bottle.

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For Spotify, a Cool Million Paying Subscribers

Spotify, a fast growing Swedish online music start-up has taken Europe by the storm. Today, it announced that it now has a million paying subscribers, making it one of the rare bright lights in the world of paid content and online music.

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Spotify CEO Outlines His Grand Ambitions

In music industry parlance, a “360 deal” is a record contract in which a label takes a cut of ticket and merchandise sales as well as recorded music revenues. Streaming music provider Spotify wants to become a 360-degree channel for downloads, ticketing, merchandise and direct-to-fan marketing.

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How MOG Eventually Found Its Mojo

A year or two ago, MOG didn’t seem like a potentially disruptive force in the music subscription arena. But what started as a music-blogging network has become a full-fledged on-demand streaming service whose transformation came about when a major-label project failed to get off the ground.

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Spotify Names New CTO

Spotify has named Oskar Stål, who spent eight years at mobile commerce service provider mBlox, as CTO. Stål’s arrival comes just over a month after the abrupt but reportedly amicable departure of Andreas Ehn as CTO.

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