Pandora's New Marketing Platform; Spotify Serves First Vertical Video Ads

Country music star Garth Brooks is Amazon's latest weapon in the music-streaming wars.

Pandora today revealed the next generation of its Artist Marketing Platform (AMP), a powerful evolution of Pandora’s unique suite of marketing tools that includes Artist Audio Messages, Featured Tracks and AMPcast.

Apple's decision to ditch the headphone jack highlighted the idea that future music services might soon be device specific, and it looks as though Amazon is taking the plunge by offering a subscription service with a strict one device limit.

A conversation thread on Github between a few developers and Spotify project leader Samuel Erdtman has confirmed that the streaming music company...

In 2012, when EMI sold to Universal and Sony, then-CEO Roger Faxon told reporters  that "major record labels, if they ever were, are no longer the gatekeepers. It's the music that matters, not the source anymore.

Spotify is serving its first vertical video ads through a new "branded moments" offering that gives people 30 minutes of free music after a commercial message.

A future chart-topping song may soon come from an algorithm.

While the evolution is far from over, music streaming services are not simply the latest stage. They also represent a paradigm shift.

By thinking and acting more entrepreneurially, emerging independent record labels are paving a more sustainable and relevant future for themselves.

While these services aren’t quite mainstream yet, the market is growing steadily. Nearly 68M people stream music today, up from just 8M in 2010.

Columbia Records chairman and CEO Rob Stringer has been named chief executive officer of Sony Music Entertainment, it was announced on Oct. 18. He will report to Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Entertainment. Current SME CEO Doug Morris will transition to the role of Chairman in April 2017.