Red Bull Starts Music Startup Accelerator In London
Even without the ecosystem around Spotify we've got a lot of hot music startups popping up in the region - whose late nights of hacking are already fueled by Red Bull - so here's an opportunity for a much stronger collaboration. Red Bull has now gotten into the startup accelerator game, plugging music-tech startups into their networks and media properties, all while not taking any equity. The program, called Red Bull Amplifier will be based in London and is currently accepting applications from european-wide startups.
Red Bull already has a music label and eight recording studios worldwide, and is helping up-and-coming musicians through Red Bull Music Academy, so this seems like a somewhat logical step to make sure their brand has close access to the up-and-coming music tech and services that will help market their brand. On top of that, Red Bull is everywhere though events, giving startups access to real consumers.
Tunigo Serves Up A Music-To-Life Mentality
I've been curious what's happening behind Tunigo since adding it by chance to my Spotify Apps. The app is basically only a playlist directory, and I've been puzzled what's been generating revenue or why someone built it. It's not a hacked-together project - their Spotify and iPhone/Android app looks quite polished, and they offer a large number of professionally curated and user submitted playlists.
Luckily I saw Tunigo has a Swedish flag in the corner, and it's my day job to ask these questions, so I reached out to the company to see what makes them tick.
The War Is On: Rdio Launches All Over Nordics To Compete With Spotify
There is no doubt about it, the war for online music streaming space is on and its about to get nasty. Prior to today, the competing companies, Spotify, Rdio, WiMP were only getting ready for battle. Counting troops, building war machines and marking territory.
Today, Rdio announced that they have launched free web music streaming in 15 countries, including pretty much every country in the ArcticStartup region with the exception of Latvia, Lithuania and Iceland. Now this is not a big news per say, as we have already covered the fact that they have silently launched first in Denmark and then in other Nordic countries.
Finland's "Startup Band" Picked Up By The XX & Pitchfork, Mukava Music Announces Funding
It's hard to get on a startup job-board these days without seeing an advertisement for a "rock-star" coder, but the founders of two Helsinki-based startups have taken it to another level. Tommi Koskinen of AudioDraft and Hanna Toivonen of Mukava Music have teamed up to create Phantom, a duo with crisp vocals and a dark electronic sound. The band has now been on stage at SXSW and released its first four track EP on Soundcloud.
Perhaps their most polished track, Scars, started immediately picking up traction after being featured on The XX's Tumblr on Wednesday, leading to a review from Pitchfork and several other music blogs last night. Scars' music video now has around 29 000 views on youtube, and 5 000 plays on Soundcloud, with most hits coming in the last day or so.
EasyRider wins Garage48 Music
Garage48 Music took place in Tallinn last weekend. 20 ideas were pitched, and 14 gathered the necessary team behind them to take off. The majority of the ideas were focused on music and entertainment, and on the judges panel was Chris Douridas, a 2-time Grammy nominated music supervisor.
The winner, EasyRider, is a tool for festival and event organizers and promoters who deal with musicians. The service bills itself as, "The easiest and fastest way to create, manage, and share your band's technical riders.
Audiodraft Grabs Huge Opportunity To Crowdsource Next Nokia Regional Ringtones
Nokia is using Audiodraft's platform to hold contests to create regional ringtones through crowdsourcing. This isn't the first time Nokia has crowd-sourced their ringtone through the Audiodraft platform, but it sends a clear signal that they have been pleased with the past results the contests have generated.
The new contests run by Nokia are to create regional ringtones for China, India, Latin America, South East Asia and Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. The prize fund totals over $37 000, with each winner receiving $1 500. It's not a bad amount of money, and it provides a great opportunity for a sound designers' work to be used on millions of headsets worldwide. The competition runs until 17 April, and the winners will be announced on 24 April.
Spotify Doubled Its Market Share In 2011
According to reports by IFPI and some other data available, it seems that Spotify doubled its market share in 2011 as compared to 2010. And by market share we mean the global streaming music market as followed by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Also, according to public records the company had filed in the UK we can tell Spotify's revenue was $99 million in 2010. Towards the end of 2010 they also shared that they had some 750 000 paying subscribers world wide. According to IFPI estimates, the global market for subscription services had about 8,2 millioin paying users. This yields Spotify a market share of around 9,1% in 2010.
Why Elisa's Blockade Is Such A Big Thing
The court's order to make Elisa block access to certain websites became our most retweeted story yesterday. It received almost 1500 retweets in about 24 hours. I'm sure the plaintiff didn't anticipate the implications this will have, not only on Elisa but on a variety of other things - potentially even harming themselves. The more significant result to this is perhaps that Finland received a lot of negative publicity in the digital media space for its court's decision. In a time when countries are competing for appeal in the eye of digital media entrepreneurs, a lot of potential candidates saw Finland's position diminish. This may sound far fetched, but it really isn't. Let me explain why.
Spotify Achieves Another Milestone, 2.5 Million Paying Subscribers And Growing
It appears to be a Spotify fest lately ever since the music streaming service announced their partnership with Facebook, bringing the service almost instantly to millions of Facebook users. Due to their reach in more countries, Spotify now announced they reached 2.5 million paying subscribers of the service.
While it would have been great if Spotify shared details on their user demographics, Spotify has kept this information in the shadows. What is more important here is that Spotify has managed to achieve this feat at a time where many listeners have been getting music for free from pirating. To have paying subscribers means that your users love the service and that they don’t mind paying a fee to avail more features, rather a “better user experience”.
TuneRights Is A Stock Market For Songs
How much do you value your favorite musicians? I suppose if you were an economist you might say something like, "by calculating the present day value of future cash flows," and TuneRights would be just the site for you. Musicians are looking for any way to monetize their works these days, and a Swedish startup is trying to provide them a way to get cash upfront for their songs-- by selling part of their songs' rights to their fans.
Spotify Brings Music Streaming To Windows Phone 7 Devices
Today, Spotify is trying to rapidly expand to every platform. The music streaming service has had things moving in the right direction, and the deal with Facebook seems to have supercharged its expansion. Last week Spotify announced the release of the Spotify app for the Windows Phone 7 devices. Big news and another platform to grow with, and there seems to be no stopping for the service.
The application is branded in the stylish WP7 Metro style, and is available for almost all the Windows Phone 7 devices. It has all the major features that every Spotify user would love, including:
Tuubio Launches A Personalized Radio App
Radio is one of the few mass media technologies that has not been widely explored by start-ups. While many companies build services around music and news, few combine both in smart ways. Tuubio, a start-up from Helsinki that has been in stealth mode for the last 5 months, has just launched their service - a personalized radio app. For the moment it is available only on Android phones or tablets with a browser-based client and an iOS app coming up soon.
Spotify Shakes Hands With Western Digital To Bring WD TV Live
About two weeks ago we reported on Facebook integrating Spotify to the social network for music streaming. A partnership that had mixed reaction from across the globe given that Spotify isn’t available in every region. At the end of last week, Spotify stretched itself further into our living rooms by announcing its partnership with Western Digital.
LoudEvents Is Matchmaking Service For Artists And Live Music Venues
LoudEvents is a matchmaking service. Don’t mistake it to be the same as boy finds girl, boy likes girl and they get connected eventually. The service comes as part of a startup - LoudRevolution - and its claim to fame is its ability to help artists find the best venues for their next performance and find a fellow artist to perform with in that venue.
Mobile Backstage Launches A Facebook App, Names David Hazan CMO
Music fans are bands' most precious resource. They can take artists to fame and earn them money. Creating and maintaining a strong fanbase is, therefore, extremely important for any band. Mobile Backstage offers artists directly engage with their core fans through a fully customized mobile app. Now their solution is also available as a Facebook app, though for the moment it is in free invite-only beta. Artists can apply for an invite here. Steam Republic, the company behind Mobile Backstage, also hired a new Chief Marketing Officer - David Hazan, a seasoned professional in music industry that would help the Helsinki-based start-up establish presense in the US.
Jenkatehdas Get Initial Funding
The first Finnish online rock venue, Jenkatehdas, gets funded by Tekes and two business angels: Jyrki Kontio and Topi Löppönen. The amount of angel investment was not disclosed, though it is known that Tekes invested 140,000€ project money into the start-up. The money will speed up the company's growth and help it start international expansion. Jenkatehdas host live concerts in their studio which are streamed in real-time on their website. Users need to purchase tickets (priced at about 5€) in order to watch the concerts and interact with each other and the band.
Ditch The Plastic: WildChords Teach How To Play A Real Guitar
Everybody likes playing a music instrument, though a lot of us don't really know how to. That is partially why game consoles that make us feel like we know what we're doing are so popular. Learning to play a real instrument is much harder and is definitely more tedious: you have to practice a lot before you can play a Beatles song. That is why Ovelin, a Finnish start-up, decided to develop Wild Chords, a computer game that is played with a real guitar. We talked with Chris Thür, co-founder and CEO, to find out more about the game and the company behind it.
Hitlantis Gets $1.5M Funding
Indymusic discovery platform from Finland, Hitlantis, this week closed a substantial angle round worth $1.5M. The team of investors include senior Nokia executives, JSH Capital Oy, Hasan & Partners, PM Ruukki Oy, Notion Oy, Rock Island Investment Oy, T&T Enterprises Oy, as well as other private individuals from the media and telecom sectors. The new funds will be used for product development and market expansion in 'key territories'. What those territories include was not stated but one can guess US is one of them. Asia is the other: Hitlantis recently launched a localized version of their service in South Korea and hinted that other markets would be opened soon. Moreover, unofficial sources claim the company plans a series A round of up to $7M for the fall.
Playmysong Now In Hollywood
Playmysong, a Finnish start-up that lets visitors in venues choose songs to be played there, launched their service in the Roxy Theater, one of the most legendary rock clubs in Los Angeles. Playmysong ventured to US earlier this spring, their first location being Overlook NYC bar in New York. Roxy Theater is the first location to use the service in California. Getting an impressive venue like that to use Playmysong is a huge bonus when it comes to customer acquisition.
Facebook And Spotify Rumored To Partner To Bring Music Streaming To The Social Network
This is definitely making things for Spotify as (unconfirmed) reports rolled out that Facebook will be launching a music streaming service. This is expected to be launched in the first week of June. The service is currently being tested and upon launch will have users of the social network seeing a Spotify icon just beneath the Photos and other links on the left hand side.
GigsWiz Does A Site Overhaul, Gets A Facelift
GigsWiz, a Finnish startup that empowers artists to assist their promoters in selling more concert tickets online, revamped its site layout, making it way more interactive than the previous design. Moreover, as the blog post on the announcement of the new design claims, GigsWiz will soon release a 'shell bomb behind the curtain'. While waiting for it to drop, it is worth taking a closer look at the new design.
Spotify Enables iPod Syncing, Aims To Replace iTunes
Spotify has taken a major step forward today with the announcment of their new feature to enable iPod syncing. Previously, the company has enabled mobile syncing to only premium customers, but today - that too is being opened up to everybody. However, it isn't quite what you're expecting. Spotify mobile opening up to everybody basically means that you're able to use the mobile application to play your own MP3-files and sync them to the application from your computer. Nevertheless, this is a big step forward for Spotify in being the "one-music-application to rule them all".
Spotify To Limit Free Account In Search Of Better Monetisation
Spotify announced today that they will limit the Spotify Free account from May 1st in a few different ways. The reason behind all this is naturally to further monetise and convert those using Spotify Free to the premium accounts. At the end of March, the company also announced, as part of its move to further monetise the user base, to give all new premium subscribers a free 7-day test of the service before billing anything.
Flow'd Strides Further Into Music Scene
Back in December 2010 we mentioned Digia’s entry into the music scene with a new mobile app called Flow’d. The application enables users to connect with their favorite artists and in doing so, gives artists some nice tools to engage their fans. The app isn’t a new idea but rather an improvement to previous location based applications that adds more value to the existing concept.
WiMP Brings Music Streaming Service To Sweden
WiMP, Scandinavia's latest music streaming service will open itself to the Swedish users, beginning March 3rd. This would allow users to signup for the service for 30 days to listen to free music. The service will offer users a quick and easy way to access a countless songs in its archive and has been specifically customized to cater to the Swedish music lovers.
GigsWiz Brings Its Ticketing Service To The US
GigsWiz, the Finnish startup that launched last year as what we all would call a fan and artist friendly ticketing service has sailed across the European continent into the US. The startup offers bands tools to manage and collect requests from fans, also providing them with an extensive analytics on what friends want to hear and where.
Rdio's New Investment Analyzed
Rdio, an on-demand music streaming service from the Skype founders, took one more important step in the race for the hearts, minds and wallets of music-lovers. We wrote previously about the impressive team behind the start-up and their close ties to the four major music labels. On top of that influential human capital, this week Rdio added some monetary capital to advance their business - they closed a $17.5M funding round from new and existing investors. The money will go towards spreading the service to new platforms and new regions as well as for further R&D. How significant is this investment for the company and its competitors?
Spotify Sails Closer To US, Signs Deal With Sony
Europe’s most popular music streaming service, Spotify is finally edging closer to cross the ocean and land into the US market with rumors of it attempting to sign deals with major labels in the US market. Last week Peter Kafka hinted that it might have struck the cords with Sony US. This will be a distribution deal and wouldn’t necessarily steer clear Spotify to invade the US market.
US Might Never See Spotify, Of Course Unless It Kills Its "Freemium" Model
There has been quite a a hype about the Swedish Music Streaming company, Spotify setting its feet on the US soils and honestly many have been waiting for this for long. Sad news, Spotify has just drained all hopes by pulling off the US launch altogether, thanks to all sorts of roadblocks created by US record labels. Quite astonishing, given that the music streaming service should have been fully functional in the region before 2010 ended. Things have turned out contrary to all such expectations.
Hard. Rock. Online. Hallelujah!
Jenkatehdas is a music start-up from Finland that's been operating in stealth mode for about nine months but publicly released their service this September. The company describes itself as a Finland's first online rock venue: they host exclusive live concerts in a rented studio and stream it in real time. The audience needs to purchase tickets to be able to view the show (4-5€) and can interact with the band by signing into the chat room on the website using Facebook credentials. Yesterday Jenkatehdas streamed their second third concert ever with Jukka Poika & Sound Explosion Band. Antti Eronen, founder and CEO, did not disclose the number of people watching the show but said he was "really happy with the number of tickets sold, since they were in triple digits". Most of the viewers stayed for over 50% of the show. All the more impressive given that the show was targeted primarily for the Finnish audience (all ads were in Finnish and the band is best known in Finland) and that the start-up is mere months old.
