Spotify and Freemium in the Cloud - Shake, Rattle and Roll love for Internationals

The house of everyone it to him his castle and fortress, as well as for his defense against injury and violence, as for his repose

Sir Edward Coke, Semayne’s Case (1605)

Yesterday Wednesday March 9^th 2011 was Ash Wednesday. Customary in Jamaica, we put on Ash and Sackcloth (literally!!!) and bemoan “how Gad so wicked sah”!! and resolve to prepare for what we must sacrifice for the Lent season. Get rid of the crosses!!!!

Heck I too might just buy myself a Rosary Chain, the fashion trend now catching on with Jamaican teens and older folk faithful to Catholicism, ever since the Vybz Kartel/Russian team up for his latest videos entitled “Vybz Kartel featuring Russian ‘Jeans and Fitted’” and his prior hit song “Vybz Kartel ft. Popcaan and Gaza Slim - Clarks”. Hail Mary mother of Grace, Catholics converts aplenty just in time for Easter!!

Even Seventh Day Adventists, who do not recognize Anglican and Catholic Holidays, utilize the Lenten Season to win some lost souls who may also be reflecting on going to another religious persuasion. Just leave the rosary chain at the Door!

My clever SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) other-half, Audia Granston, while she was alive and kicking, utilized the season to capitalize on the Bun and Cheese Trade…and no, I am NOT referring to the one of the fruity kind.

Before she had met me, she was quite the Male Window shopper, being as she was a cosmetologist by trade. Her liking of me was recommendations enough for me to attract other females, of which I am grateful! Her favourite (annoying!!) phrase “OMG”!! 

Now in the EU, Spotify, a Music User recommendation and Streaming Service, has achieved what I though impossible: make Cloud-based streaming music economically feasible based on the article “For Spotify, a Cool Million Paying Subscribers”, published March 7, 2011, 6:38pm PT by Om Malik, GigaOM and corroborated in the article “One million subscribers pay for Spotify music”, published 09 March 2011, CBR Staff Writer, CBR. That’s a lot of loving!

Spotify jumped from six hundred and fifty thousand (650,000) users in November 2010 to their current mark announced in March 2011 of one million (1,000,000) users, quite a milestone for a two (2) year old start-up.

Spotify Founder and CEO Daniel Ek, expresses it best in his blog post to celebrate the milestone: “It seems like only yesterday we were hatching ideas for a new music service in a tiny office-cum-apartment with a broken coffee machine, and the party we threw having reached one million users almost two years ago today was one to remember. So it’s with a sense of real pride and excitement that we can announce a new milestone today, having welcomed our millionth paying subscriber to the service”. Fair enough!!

Guess the Freemium Business Model for Music, a portmanteau of “Free” and “Premium” paid content, APPARENTLY can work for music, after so many failed “experiments”. 15% being premium or paying thirty (30) day subscription customers is not bad too and in my opinion, may be better than the ratio of some Telecom Providers such as Telecom Provider Digicel, who I have surmised has 20% so-called Postpaid (30-day subscription Prepaid in the USA!!!) customers after being in Jamaica for seven (7) years.

Additionally, this may be evidence of the Pew Study which suggested that people ARE wiling to pay for Online content if the delivery mechanism is right as the article by CNET Blogger Lance Whitney entitled “Study: So people do pay for online content”, published December 30, 2010 7:43 AM PST by Lance Whitney, Digital Media - CNET News!

Pew’s one thousand (1000) strong study (October 28^th 2010 to November 1^st 2010) netted seven hundred and fifty (750) Internet users of this year, 65% of which spent online with at least 43% spending up to US$10 online, an indication of the price range online content deliver services must fit themselves into to make a sale.

We Jamaicans call this model “Taste-and-Buy” in our colourful patios, so I will claim this to be yet another victory for Jamaica or at least Jamaican common-sense being adopted by an EU start-up thriving despite the Global Economic Meltdown.

Local Jamaican Telecom Provider Digicel, Telecom Provider LIME and now Telecom Provider CLARO are learning that is the only way to get people to use their services: the Rewards System as the Young and the Restless in New Kingston call it, effectively a version of “Taste-and-Buy” or Freemium as it is called Internationally.

Previous failures, experiment they ALL were, being as no hard evidence existed to suggest that music labels folded, allegedly due to piracy. As if poor marketing, crappy music CD singles and Album compilations had no part to play in their demise.

So what’s next for this Freemium success in just two years and with Venture Capitalists and Investors throwing an estimated US$213 million at Spotify? Could it be the Cloud?

Cloud-based services have been around in Silicon Valley from as long as the Devil was a boy! The latest trending now among the Silicon Valley Tech heavyweights in the last decade of the 21^st Century is the Cloud. As in Cloud-based Streaming!

To be fair, CNET blogger Greg Sandoval had spotted the rise of Spotify and Freemium Business Models form Music Distribution as stated in the article “Hey iTunes, here comes Google Music, Spotify”, published January 31, 2011 2:16 PM PST by Greg Sandoval, Media Maverick - CNET News. It also mentions Google Music potential rise, as everyone is after Apple CEO Steve Jobs and the Apple Inc Team.

“Anti-social” Mountain View, California-based Google, as usual, late to anything to do with Social Networking and sharing despite their Engineering roots, is set a Sisyphean task of playing catch up to a Music Industry that Apple iTunes has corralled for itself.

But alas, I had ignored his articles as early signposts of a coming profitable model for music sharing and wrote them off as being yet another set of flash-in-the-pan statistics. After all, Apple iTunes is king of music and video content – they have the “city padlock” to use the Jamaican colloquial.

To be honest, this trend of Cloud-Based services was picking up among small Silicon Valley startups and a few heavies such as Yahoo! Mail (now with FaceBook integration and improved spam protection!), Google Mail Google Mail (now with Integrated Google Voice Calling free to the USA and Canada!!) , who dabbled with the Cloud.

Via this media I would like to extend some “big-ups” to the Google Voice Team, for making Gmail integrated Google Voice functional in Jamaica so as to make foreign calling to US and Canadian numbers free…..at least for now as noted in my blog article entitled “Google and Google Voice - The World is Not Enough”.

Other notables abound in the Mobile smartphone and “Feature” phone arena. Notable examples abound such as Pandora (now blocked to International users? Strange?) and Last.FM for the streaming radio crowd and YouTube, NetFlix (Say what! No Internationals allowed!) and Hulu (again no love for Internationals!).

Note to American Music and Film Industry seeking to recover from the Recession: a push towards an International audience will be your long term saviors as opined in my blog article entitled “America, Productivity and International Labour - Dream Merchant”

In the plain-old Data Storage and Website Hosting Category (thankfully available to Internationals!), DropBox and Go-Daddy, which I personally used at UWI as it is great for long distance collabs, is also part of the stand-out crowd of long time Cloud aficionados.

Google Chrome OS running on Intel (Processor/Acer and Samsung Macbook Pro-ish hardware called the Cr-48, still in beta testing as stated in my blog article entitled “Google Chrome OS and Open Source - Star Wars A New Hope” is of a similar ilk, a herald for Open Source in the enterprise and Government as well, something Jamaica can seek to emulate.

Apple appears to be making a similar push, what with rumours circulating of a redesign of the Apple iPhone 5 and the possibility of a cheaper half-blood prince of a sibling. Apple is alleged to be on the verge of a debut of an ad sponsored version of MobileMe. All opinion detailed in my blog article entitled “Apple and the Cloud Phone - Cheaper by the dozen and Up in the Air”.

Apparently they too may have been watching the rise of Spotify and thus may be making moves to maintain their dominance against the infectious charms of Freemium, which is not much different from Open Source Android.

Already Apple is not faring so well against the onslaught of Google Android as chronicled in my Geezam Blog  article “Apple iPhone and Google Android - Helms Deep Under Attack”, which denies its Open Source roots publicly. This apparently in a move by Google as to not offend the Proprietary 800-pound Gorilla(s) in the slow growing smaller smartphone, Netbook, Smartbook, Laptop and emerging Tablet Markets in the US of A!!! 

This as the purchase of Lala was speculated to be Apple’s push into streaming music for the  Apple iTunes sheep….er….that is to say “subscribers” as stated in the article “Apple buys Lala, entering the streaming music business”, published August 12 2009 12:06 AM, USA Today and further cemented in the article “What Apple's Lala Acquisition may Mean for iTunes”, published December 5, 2009 1:26 PM By Paul Suarez, PC World.

So Spotify stands head and shoulders above the rest, demonstrating the power of Freemium powered by Open Source.

And Spotify is yet to reach the US! Score one for Internationals!

Spotify may exemplify what Open Source and Cloud-based Services appears to be able to do against the empire that Apple iTunes built: Shake, Rattle and Roll Big Joe Turner Style!! Silicon Valley players on the World Stage, pay attention and take note!! David [Spotify] may just beat Goliath [Apple iTunes] this year using the one-two Open Source and Cloud-based Services combo punch.

As for me, I am trying out Spotify today at my workplace Amazing PC in Bargain Village, May Pen, Clarendon today, the day after Ash Wednesday, as penance for all the music I have downloaded for free!