FUSE TV - Bits & Bytes: Spotify Thanks Apple For "Validating" Its Business

Jesse Kirshbaum is the co-founder and visionary behind SoundCTRL, the authority in music tech culture, news and events. When not serving as CEO of NUE Agency, he sits on the Global Advisory Board of Social Media Week and Digital Music Wire, sharing a dynamic enthusiasm and passion for shaping the new music business. Stay tuned to Fuse.tv for Bits & Bytes, his weekly roundup and personal take on the latest in music tech. 

Words and roundup by Jesse K, powered by SoundCTRL

It’s the biggest week ever when it comes to the Streaming Wars. Apple Music launches tomorrow, June 30! A study by Nielsen released at the EDM Biz Conference showed that only 5 percent of consumers pay for streaming. Will the launch of Apple Music change the landscape? To bring you up to speed, here are the latest updates. Since last week, Apple has announced: 

• Additional curated radio stations by Pharrell Williams, Drake, St. Vincent, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, Disclosure and Jaden Smith
• Apple Music will integrate with Sonos by the end of the year
• They'll pay artists $0.0002 per stream during the free trial period 
• Taylor Swift's latest album, 1989, is available on Apple Music; so, for the first time, is Dr. Dre's The Chronic
• Apple plans to plan to raise the music cloud library limit from 25,000 to 100,000 songs with the launch of iOS 9 

How is Spotify is fighting back?

• Acquired the data service Seed Scientific, which provides analytics to Beats Music 
• Offering their discounted trial of $0.99 for 3 months to other markets (U.K. and various European countries) 
• Shared their latest premium subscribers stats "in case you are reviewing any new music services this week"

I think it’s too soon to tell how this will play out but my feeling is the market is going to continue to be very fragmented for now. Maybe somebody will invent a hack that can aggregate all of the services eventually.