All posts tagged: Spotify

New York Times adds new strand to bundle with podcast paywall

New York Times adds new strand to bundle with podcast paywall

Picture: The New York Times The New York Times will this month begin drawing its popular podcasts behind its online subscriptions barrier. Listeners will be able to pass through the paywall if they have a New York Times news, All Access or NYT Audio login. And for the first time it will also be possible to purchase an audio-only subscription directly through third-party hosting platforms. New York Times head of subscription growth Ben Cotton told Press Gazette the launch hopes to find revenue in previously untapped audiences – and lure new subscribers into its All Access bundle. “What we’ve seen is that we have millions of listeners who continue to engage with us exclusively on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or another third-party platform,” Cotton said. “We see it as a natural evolution to extend subscription rules and offerings that we started to put in place on our own products to third-party platforms.” Thanks for subscribing. Close The New York Times already has its own paywalled audio app, NYT Audio, which is accessible to anyone with …

Why I Switched From Spotify to Apple Music

Why I Switched From Spotify to Apple Music

Key Takeaways Despite Spotify’s advantages, it might be worth considering a switch to Apple Music. Apple Music’s sound quality surpasses Spotify, offering a better listening experience. Apple Music’s streamlined interface and fewer recommendations can help limit mindless consumption. Spotify is still the world’s most popular music streaming service, but now could be the right time to switch to Apple Music. Beyond further planned price increases, Spotify’s interface could be another reason to change. Learn why you may want to switch—and why I did—below. The main reason why I left Spotify is because the app started to resemble social media too much. I didn’t really mind video overlays when playing songs, but I did not like seeing short-form videos on my home feed and when searching for songs. You can argue that these videos offer interesting snippets of songs you may be interested in. But for me, they were little more than a distraction. I think that social media can be good for you, but only if you control your consumption—and when I saw these videos, …

How to Connect to and Control Spotify With Alexa

How to Connect to and Control Spotify With Alexa

If you’ve got Spotify, you may want to play your favorite songs and podcasts through your Amazon Echo speaker. But what’s the easiest way to do this? And how can you control your Spotify app through Alexa? How to Connect to Spotify With Alexa Spotify can be connected to a range of Echo devices, including the Dot, Pop, Spot, Show, and Tap. Before you can play audio from Spotify on your Echo device, you’ll need to connect the Spotify app to your Alexa account. To do this, head into the Alexa smartphone app and open the More tab in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Then, go to Music & More > Settings > Link New Service. Here, you’ll be able to select Spotify from the list. After selecting the Spotify option, you’ll be taken to the Alexa Skills page. Here, you’ll need to enable the skill, which will then take you to the Spotify login page. Enter your login details, accept the terms of connecting Spotify with Alexa, and you’re all set. How to …

Musi Won Over Millions. Is the Free Music Streaming App Too Good to Be True?

Musi Won Over Millions. Is the Free Music Streaming App Too Good to Be True?

Musi has faced objections to its business practices before. In October 2019, the company filed suit against an online ad network, alleging that it had withheld payments owed for ads that ran within the Musi app. In November that year, the ad network filed a counter-complaint alleging that it stopped payments after discovering Musi’s business was fraudulent. “Musi was knowingly and illegally ripping music off from YouTube,” the counter-complaint said, alleging that when advertisers found out, it lost over $7 million. A judge granted a request from Musi to dismiss the case without prejudice in 2020. Cherie Hu, the founder of the music-business research network Water & Music, described Musi’s interface as utilitarian. It’s a place to listen to music and make playlists, and that’s it. Users don’t see song lyrics, information about upcoming concerts, or any features hinting at collaborations or partnerships with artists. “It’s a very generic way of curating and presenting music,” she says. Even after more than a decade in operation, it still feels more like a bright CS student’s senior …

TechCrunch Minute: Spotify’s move to paywall lyrics is putting pressure on free users

TechCrunch Minute: Spotify’s move to paywall lyrics is putting pressure on free users

Spotify’s slow movement to put lyrics behind its paid service wall in its music service are about as popular as you would expect. Precise details of the update are evolving but what we can say at this point is that it seems that Spotify has a new feature up its sleeve to try and get free users to convert to is paid service. The why behind the move matters more than the what. Sure, it’s a little weird that Spotify is going to start putting information that is freely available online behind a paid wall, but the company is in a slightly difficult position today. Thanks to an early start and attractive pricing, Spotify is huge. It does billions in revenue, and helped shake up the music industry for good. That said, it largely offers paid access to other peoples’ music. Other companies do the same. Apple is one of them. That means that Spotify’s pricing power is modest at best. Features like its yearly music review are neat, but don’t allow Spotify to charge more …

Spotify starts hiding song lyrics behind paywall

Spotify starts hiding song lyrics behind paywall

Spotify’s free tier has just gotten a little worse. The company recently put yet another popular feature behind its Spotify Premium paywall: song lyrics. As noticed by numerous users on Reddit (via Android Authority), to see song lyrics you now need to have a Spotify Premium subscription, which starts at $10.99 ($5.99 for students). Some users are reporting that song lyrics aren’t completely unavailable on the free tier; instead, there’s a monthly limit on lyrics for non-Premium subscribers. Mashable Light Speed Tweet may have been deleted Spotify’s free tier doesn’t cost anything, but it contains ads, and doesn’t let users download or play songs in any order, among other limitations. On the flip side, the company also increased the prices of its Premium subscription tiers, with reports claiming that it’s going to get even more expensive this year. SEE ALSO: How to download songs from Spotify For comparison, Apple Music does not offer a free tier, and neither does Tidal (there used to be a free Tidal tier, but it was recently canceled). YouTube Music …

Spotify CEO Shocked That Laying Off Staff Presented A Challenge

Spotify CEO Shocked That Laying Off Staff Presented A Challenge

Spotify is one of the biggest music platforms in the world. But even the most successful companies have their ups and downs.  After taking some financial hits, Spotify announced that it was laying off 17% of its workforce. Now, they seem to be almost regretting that decision. Spotify’s CEO was dismayed by the ‘negative impact’ of the company’s December layoffs. According to the financial publication The Street, Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, made the decision to lay off 17% of the company’s employees at the end of 2023. RELATED: Worker Asks What To Do After Discovering His Job Posted Online For $10 More An Hour — ‘Someone’s Getting Fired Or Promoted’ “When Ek sent a memo to Spotify employees in December announcing the decision to shrink the company’s workforce, he claimed that economic headwinds were the reason for the company’s layoffs,” they said. His exact words to employees in the memo were, “Economic growth has slowed dramatically, and capital has become more expensive. Spotify is not an exception to these realities. This brings me to a …

Spotify and Apple Again Clash Over App Store Rules and Fees

Spotify and Apple Again Clash Over App Store Rules and Fees

Spotify has not been able to get Apple to approve an EU app update that added information on subscription pricing and links to the Spotify website, and it turns out that’s because Spotify has not agreed to the terms of Apple’s Music Streaming Services Entitlement. A recent antitrust ruling from the European Commission fined Apple nearly $2 billion and mandated that Apple “remove anti-steering provisions” for music apps in the European Economic Area (EEA). As a result, Apple updated its App Store rules with a Music Streaming Services Entitlement that allows music apps in the EEA to inform users of other ways to purchase digital music content or services and to add website links for purchasing digital music subscriptions. That might sound like a win for apps like Spotify, but Apple requires developers who use the entitlement to pay a 27 percent fee (reduced for subscriptions older than one year and for small businesses) on all website purchases referred by Apple. So if Spotify puts a link in its app and a user clicks it …

Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ sets new records on Spotify and vinyl

Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ sets new records on Spotify and vinyl

Taylor Swift performs onstage at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Sept. 20, 2022. Terry Wyatt/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Terry Wyatt/Getty Images Taylor Swift performs onstage at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Sept. 20, 2022. Terry Wyatt/Getty Images Taylor Swift, the millennial pop goddess whose latest album is now the first to surpass one billion Spotify streams in a single week, has smashed her own record when it comes to the sales of her physical albums as well. Her Tortured Poets Department, released on April 19, took only five days to make history on Spotify. And in a typical overachiever move, Swift not only also sold the most vinyl albums ever in a week, but took only three days to do so. And the record she broke was her own. Tortured Poets Department has sold more than 700,000 physical albums so far. Last year, about a million vinyl records were sold in the US, in total. Nearly 10 percent of them were Taylor Swift’s. Swift closed 2023 with five of the year’s top 10 …

Did you know that one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify is about deliverance and exorcisms?

Did you know that one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify is about deliverance and exorcisms?

Satan’s temptation of Christ by Ary Scheffer ” data-image-caption=”Satan’s temptation of Christ by Ary Scheffer (1854)/Wikipedia/Public Domain ” data-medium-file=”https://i1.wp.com/opentheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/temptation-of-christ-satan-devil-1854-by-ary-scheffer-wikipedia-public-domain.jpg?w=500&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i1.wp.com/opentheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/temptation-of-christ-satan-devil-1854-by-ary-scheffer-wikipedia-public-domain.jpg?w=500&ssl=1″ width=”500″ height=”333″ fifu-data-src=”https://i1.wp.com/opentheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/temptation-of-christ-satan-devil-1854-by-ary-scheffer-wikipedia-public-domain.jpg?w=500&ssl=1″ alt=”Satan’s temptation of Christ by Ary Scheffer” class=”wp-image-47385″ style=”width:603px;height:auto” srcset=”https://i1.wp.com/opentheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/temptation-of-christ-satan-devil-1854-by-ary-scheffer-wikipedia-public-domain.jpg?w=500&ssl=1 500w, https://opentheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/temptation-of-christ-satan-devil-1854-by-ary-scheffer-wikipedia-public-domain.jpg?w=1000 1000w, https://opentheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/temptation-of-christ-satan-devil-1854-by-ary-scheffer-wikipedia-public-domain.jpg?w=768 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px”/>Satan’s temptation of Christby Ary Scheffer (1854)/Wikipedia/Public Domain “For the last several years, the Catholic Church has noted an alarming increase in the number of exorcisms performed,” Ryan Bethea, The Exorcist Files. It’s called The Exorcist Files. In its first year, the podcast had over 7.5 million downloads and has been at the top of Spotify charts for upwards of 40 weeks, CBN reports. According to its creator, Ryan Bethea, the goal of the podcast is to expose to its listeners the realities of the demonic realm and spiritual warfare. When Bethea initially came up with the idea for the podcast, he was intending to focus on miracles. However, this changed after he visited the Vatican in 2018, and came in contact with one of the Roman Catholic Church’s leading experts on spiritual warfare …