Friday, March 29, 2024

Spotify Bold Move to Fight Apple Music: Brand New Free Version of App “Something for Nothing”

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Spotify is throwing its weight into the free part of its service. Access to all music “something for nothing” is their goal to massive growth and to ward off Apple Music’s burgeoning threat to their leadership.The new features for free listening is designed toward a huge amount of personalization. Spotify will offer 40 hours a day of easily accessed free music. The hope, said execs at a morning press conference in New York, is that this plan will spur new subscribers to their premium service.

Spotify is also helping customers who have caps on data plans.  They’re optimizing usage to lower mobile data by at least 75 percent. They’re also simplifying the mobile interface.

The Spotify execs who made the presentation this morning were upbeat and positive. But the news wasn’t exactly what was expected. All week there had been buzz about a possible piece of Spotify hardware for the car or some kind of dedicated player. This news about “Freemium”– as they call it– is good for listeners, certainly.

But it raised a lot of questions that no one is prepared to address yet– as in how this will affect artists’ royalties, and what it really means for Spotify’s premium service. The execs feel this will spur users to pony up for the premium service. Troy Carter, director of Creator Content, said to one reporter (not me): “Come on, you know if you’re on a date you don’t want to hear those ads.” It got a laugh– because it’s true.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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