Beats

Seven reasons why I love Spotify and 17 why I don’t

I love Spotify, I’ll just make that clear from the start. Spotify has completely changed the way I listen to music.

In fact, while I briefly linger in this positive mood, here are some more reasons why I love Spotify: 

As a part-time music journalist, I couldn’t function properly without its unlimited access to 20m songs. Also, new album releases for any given Monday seem to appear not long after midnight on the Sunday before. This is terrific for my Monday morning commute.

I can also use Spotify on as many devices as I like (desktop, laptop, phone, work computer) with up to 3,333 songs able to be synced for offline listening on up to three devices at a time.

Just in case Thom Yorke is reading, I will also add that far as I’m concerned, using Spotify has led to me spending more money on music through other channels (mainly independent record stores), purely because of the access I now have to music that I wouldn’t normally listen to

As a final bonus, in the free version of Spotify, it has jettisoned the limits to how many times you can listen to a song and how many hours a month you can use it. I would however suggest that £10 a month is a small price to pay not to have to put up with some of the most irritating adverts ever hosted on a platform.

And this is where we arrive at the major thrust of this article.

Is Beats about to launch a Spotify killer?

Beats, the ubiquitous headphone brand co-founded by Dr Dre, will release its music streaming service Beats Music in the USA on 21 January.

Beats currently controls 27% of the $1.8bn headphone market and 57% of the premium market (an eye-watering place where headphones can cost anywhere between $100-$400) and its headphones have quickly become a visual staple of public transport, the high street and indeed the very office I’m writing this article in now, within only the last few years.

Now it looks like Beats is set to take on the music streaming market with what appears to be an expertly planned, theoretically artist-friendly and potentially Spotify smashing service.

Let’s take a closer look…

Tips for journalists and PRs working with Econsultancy

2013 is the year of content marketing, and that means an increase on eye strain and inbox space for the editorial team here.

As Econsultancy’s Content Marketing Executive, I schedule and source content from contributors that might align well with our reports, and there are a few things I’d like to highlight as tips for both PRs and journalists working with Econsultancy.

This includes what we do and do not cover on the blog, and pitching best practice outlined below.

Beats, HTC may launch streaming music service

Despite the woes of the music industry over the past decade, few things are as popular as music. Not surprisingly, that’s true on the internet too.

Just how popular is music on the internet? Consider that once-dominant social network MySpace, long written off by many as effectively dead, has managed to attract 1m new users primarily with a revamped music player.