Facebook Moving Towards Music Streaming?; Spotify Deletes Inbox Feature

Are Facebook making a move towards streaming or music publishing on their platform? The hiring of two new executives all but confirms it.

Millions have watched tutorials on how to get Spotify Premium for free. Google and YouTube are fueling the fire. So how much money is being lost here?

2015 was a big year for streaming music but it was a bigger deal for streaming video, generating $16 billion in revenue compared to $4.5 billion for streaming music, reports Mark Mulligan of MIDiA. Both figures are retail values.

Music industry executives and entrepreneurs gathered in Amsterdam last Thursday through Friday to unpack the future of the music industry, from A&R and marketing to streaming and gaming.

The Musicoin Blockchain will be the foundation of a larger project called Musicoin, which will allow musicians to independently license and release their music such that each playback will trigger a payment from the listener directly to the musician.

Ever wish that you could communicate with fans and playlisters on Spotify? Forget it. At a time when most apps are encouraging communications, Spotify is deleting its own messaging system.

Saavn, termed "India's Spotify," rolled out its Artist Originals (AO) program for independent artists from India and South Asia.

Google has today updated the official list of services that Google Home supports with mention of iHeartRadio. The music streaming service hasn’t been officially available on Google Home up to this point, but now it looks like Google is rolling it out.

"I wish people knew what they were missing sometimes. I’m not trying to be didactic or anything like that, but the connection I feel with vinyl can never be replaced by listening to something on the computer or a phone. But, really, to each his own. If that’s what you’re into and what you’re accustomed to, I can’t really tell you no."

Japan's biggest music entertainment firm, Avex Group, and leading Chinese digital music platform, NetEase Cloud Music, announced the signing of an agreement forming a strategic partnership that grants the Chinese platform an exclusive license to Japanese music copyrights in mainland China.

Chopra joins Pandora from TiVo, where he was most recently interim CEO and CFO.