The Music Streaming Challenge; Where Does the U.S. Music Business Go From Here?

A Game Of Songs. The Music Streaming Challenge — medium.com 
 Recently, Spotify celebrated 50 million subscribers. Overall, more than 100 million people pay for a music on-demand streaming subscription globally.

Where Does the U.S. Music Business Go From Here? — www.billboard.com 
 Streaming is driving growth that the U.S. music business hasn’t seen in two decades. Can it continue?

Claims of 40.7m Apple Music users in the US deserve scepticism — musically.com 
 “Apple Music saw over 40m users on mobile last month, leading Spotify by 10m,” ran a headline on 9 to 5 Mac yesterday, based on a new analytics report.

Streaming wars: The precarious position of Spotify — medium.com 
 The Swedish company have been riding high and are giving Silicon Valley veterans a run for their money.

Drake’s More Life is the New Normal in Streaming — www.midiaresearch.com

Released over the weekend after much delay, Drake’s More Life project is setting records across the board on streaming platforms.

What Your Music Streaming Service Tells People about You — medium.com 
 There are two questions that label you more harshly and permanently than any others. They are: “Apple or Android?” and, “What do you use to listen to music?” If your answers to these questions are…

The “casual learner” era: Digital music tools are reshaping music education — www.economist.com 
 ONE OF the biggest challenges to traditional music learning is the need for practice. Students must play scales, chords and patterns over and over in hopes of developing muscle memory; for many, it is a daunting and tedious task.

Vevo pitches ‘safer’ buy to advertisers but holds back from calling out YouTube — www.thedrum.com 
 Vevo is quickening plans to win round the advertisers reassessing their relationship with Google, but the music video giant appears to be treading carefully so as not to bite the YouTube-shaped hand that feeds it.

Guardian Podcasts Launch on Spotify — platformandstream.com 
 The Guardian’s podcasts are now available on Spotify for the first time, offering listeners on mobile devices a new way to access its award-winning audio content.

Jack Stephens joins Spotify as Creator Partnerships Manager — www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

Popular British exec Jack Stephens has joined Spotify’s ranks as Creator Partnerships Manager. Working from the streaming company’s London HQ, Stephens will report into Shane Tobin — Spotify’s Head of Creator Insights and Activations.

Five Takeaways From the RIAA’s 2016 Year-End Report — www.billboard.com 
 When the RIAA released its revenue statistics for 2016 yesterday, the headlines were about the industry’s remarkable growth. But a closer look at the numbers reveals a few other notable trends.

Music-themed messaging company Emoticast raises $5 million from Sean Parker, Will.i.am, others — venturebeat.com 
 Emoticast, a social platform that strives to bring a little pop culture to the mobile messaging mix, has closed a $5 million funding round from some notable angel investors, including Napster cofounder and early Facebook president Sean Parker, hip-hop mogul Will.i.am, and DJ and producer David Guetta.