Spotify has just launched their upgraded Spotify Radio service that takes a direct shot at Pandora. Spotify Radio offers unlimited stations and unlimited skips, so it is a mile ahead of the competition (potentially makes Pandora and We7 pointless).
Features:
A unique radio experience
Thanks to our all-new intelligent recommendation engine and multi-million track library, Spotify Radio is a music discovery experience without equal.
Unlimited skips
Don’t like a track? Skip it. You can skip as many times as you like. It’s your radio station.
The new Spotify Radio is being rolled out as we speak but you can also get the preview now! The preview version available for you here.
Only days after Spotify had a major upgrade which included a lot of social and sharing features, We7 has now announced some new sharing features of their own.
We7 is still yet to make an official announcement, but it seems that users can now connect to their Facebook account to post details while also scrobbling tracks to Last.fm.
We7 boss Steve Purdham revealed on-stage at MidemNet that the streaming music firm will launch its premium offering on 1 February.
The company has announced more details:
Unlimited stream access to more than 4 million songs – £4.99 a month, no ads.
Premium Plus includes the above plus mobile access with iPhone and Android apps – £9.99 per month
“The new premium services are about choice for the consumer,” “In the new digital music economy there is no single business model that fits all. That is why we give consumers the ability to listen to great music how they want, where they want and at a price they are prepared to pay.” says CEO Steve Purdham.
We7 are going to just compete head on with Spotify in the UK market. Im not exactly too sure this is a good idea. I dont really understand why We7 didnt just focus on becoming more of an international online music streaming site. We7 is very popular here in the UK, but they are still a long way behind in other markets. Maybe they are trying to run before they can walk. However, I understand that they feel they need to launch such a service as other competitors such as Spotify, Grooveshark, Thumbplay and MOG, move into this market.
We7 have a couple of exclusive albums available this week: the first from Joss Stone, is here on the Times website, if you don’t fancy being all conventional and going onto the We7 website. Next up is Shirley Bassey, Adrian Moles’ teenage idol, who’s ‘The Performance’ will be available from we7 and via a widget on the Guardian.co.uk music pages. The album and widget will go live on 6th November and features songs written by Take That’s Gary Barlow, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Manic Street Preachers, The Pet Shop Boys, KT Tunstall and Rufus Wainwright.
When you’re done with that, you can go listen to ‘Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, a Paris: Martha Wainwright’s Piaf Record’ from the sister of the aforementioned Rufus – I’m a fan of Martha’s ever since I saw her doing her funny leg thing at South By South West last year, inexplicably sexy…
Spotify’s Co-founder, Daniel Ek, recently has admitted, that “Spotify has not made it easy for its users to buy music, that is where we need to improve.”
Their first step to making these improvements comes in the form of easier access to buying certain albums. From today you will be able to click on any song that appears on Spotify that’s also in 7digital catalogue, which should exclusively feature a “BUY NOW” button below the accompanying artwork.
Before you had to click on the track to first right click and check if it was available to buy, then carry on with the dirty gumpf that is your web browser and try to be as patient as possible while you buy it. As well as making it easier to identify the albums that are available to buy, you no longer are sent to an outside website any more, a tidy looking window appears within the app, your shown the quality of the music, (kbps) and then given a gentle prompt into where your details go. Once you’ve clicked the right boxes your music starts downloading.
You can also find everything you have ever bought through the service, which sits in the upper corner next to your Radio/Play Que tabs. From here you can move them around your computer as you wish, they’re MP3′s so you can import them around as you wish, stick em in your iTunes or just put them in another playlist.
Spotify has also just released a video of its new features:
Grooveshark are now firmly cemented as members of the free music for music fans fraternity along with others including We7, Deezer and obviously new giants Spotify. (we know there not all completely free!) With these guys being directly involved in the way music is changing, and likely being involved in someway with the big four record labels that everyone is quickly getting fed up with eventually go under, its only natural that they’d be knocking around The Future Of Music Summit.
Some interviews, be they amateur ones, are leaking its way to the net. Jack DeYoun (VP of label relations at Grooveshark) was mauled outside the summit by Scott Stead. The interview goes well until Jack reveals his favourite band…… so close.
disclosure: RouteNote is partners with Grooveshark.
We7, successful UK music streaming site have launched its latest endeavour. An unsigned band channel, of sorts.
Five acts will be chosen every two months by experts from the likes of NME, The Guardian and Ditto Music. The bands will be featured on some specially selected play lists with each play resulting in an immediate payment to the bands own Paypal accounts. We7, which around 2.5 million regular visitors each month will also give the bands websites coverage, add them to any social media events the site is involved in along with banner ads. We7 constantly assure the public of the genuine interest that they have in new and unsigned acts. This is good to see. A nice big website, with lots of regular readers and presumably a nice tonne of contacts and revenue actually being pro active in using them all to help out the little guys. Good work we7!
SICK BOY: Well, at one time, you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever…
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but that quote pretty much sums up Muse’s latest offering from me. I understand that they’re one of the biggest bands in the country, if not the world, and that nothing I say here is going to have the slightest effect on their huge popularity, towering album sales, or the droves of fans who will be attending their next run of sell-out gigs. Their reputation is built mainly on the back of their big album, ‘Showbiz’ and a great live act, but I get the feeling that they’ve either lost heart, or something’s turned bitter in the emotional and creative cocktail that they used to get this far. The new album pulls in a load of odd and disparate influences, from the warbling strains of the Dr. Who theme tune heard in ‘Uprising’, or the strangely mangled Queen-like bursting operatic harmonies in ‘United States of Eurasia’ (A 1984 reference?In my anti-establishment band?).
The whole album feels forced, thrown together with a mish-mash of conflicting styles and rather samey material that doesn’t really take the band forward. I don’t know whether they’re trying to emulate bands like Radiohead and Portishead in trying for something avant-garde and different by sticking in these weird elements, but it doesn’t work for me. I now prepare to take flak for the rest of the week. As a small compensation, here’s a link to the Guardian’s rather white-washy piece with a We7 streaming widget where you can listen to the whole album.
Bob Dylan has never been a fan of digital music services, but this week he has pointed the finger directly at music streaming services. Over the past few days his back catalogue has been pulled from sites like we7 and Spotify, as Dylan takes issue with those who are sharing his music with their users. An instruction was issued by his US reps, through Sony, asking sites to prove they have the right to put the material up.
Clive Gardiner, we7’s digital music SVP, said: “We took it off the site a few days ago. Spotify would have had the same instruction. But it may be a short listing and it may come back again.
“There are some artists that will take umbrage at this from time to time. We expect this sort of thing, especially with streaming, and it not being fully understood where it sits yet. “
I still find it funny how major artists and their record labels still arent understand the concept behind music streaming services and technology in general. Dont they understand that music is slowly heading towards free and that the artist will be paid royalties in the same way as radio stations pay royalties?
There has been a huge amount of press for Spotify in the UK of late. However, Hitwise has released their figures and it seems that We7 is the fastest growing music service in the UK. We7 is now the ninth most prominent music site according to Hitwise data.
