Why Amazon’s podcast move is even bigger than it looks

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

10 Nov 2022

audio

Podcasts

amazon music

Last week, Amazon made headlines with its move to expand the catalogue of music available to Prime members from 2 million songs to 100 million. But the announcement also included a major implication for...

Read more …

Patreon is making video a battleground for creator allegiance

Blog post by Ben Woods

8 Nov 2022

social video

YouTube

patreon

With jitters building in the advertising market, YouTube appears vulnerable to challengers. Google’s parent Alphabet, the ultimate owner of YouTube, recorded its slowest sales growth for two years last...

Read more …

The cost of music streaming just went up — here is what must come next

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

3 Nov 2022

music streaming

music industry

apple music

It is finally happening. Apple Music raised its music streaming subscription price for the first time ever, following price rises from the likes of YouTube and Deezer, and Spotify indicates that it will...

Read more …

Twitch and YouTube are poised for disruption in the video game advertising explosion

Blog post by Ben Woods

1 Nov 2022

Twitch

advertising

ad revenue

Two years ago, the broad negative sentiment toward in-game advertisements stood steadfast as the gaming industry devised the ground rules for realising its multi-billion-dollar advertising opportunity....

Read more …

Why Amazon Music is primed for success

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

1 Nov 2022

amazon music

streaming music

dsps

Amazon Music today announced that it was extending the number of songs available on its Prime Music tier from two million to one hundred million. It is kind of a big deal, but not that big a deal when...

Read more …

Are the short-term benefits of rereleases luring big games companies into a long-term trap?

Blog post by Perry Gresham

21 Oct 2022

remaster

rerelease

remake

Ever since the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One almost a decade ago, the games industry has found itself in an era of remasters. The shift towards re-releases is clear, with cross-gen ports of Diablo III...

Read more …

The music industry needs a new format

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

20 Oct 2022

lean through

music product strategy

music formats

Non-DSP streaming was one of – arguably the – differences between steady growth and stellar growth for the music business in 2021. With three billion dollars of retail revenues in 2021, non-DSP has...

Read more …

Why interactive engagement must become a new frontline in video streaming

Blog post by Ben Woods

18 Oct 2022

Twitch

Smart TV

Cult of The Lamb

As we travel deeper into the era of entertainment saturation, video streaming services are facing some uncomfortable truths.Maintaining and securing audiences by green-lighting expensive series based on...

Read more …

Label executives: take this survey and receive a free MIDiA report

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

12 Oct 2022

Music

Product Strategy

MIDiA is fielding a survey exploring the changing role of music streaming services in today’s music business and we want to hear your opinions. Specifically, we want to hear the opinions of record label...

Read more …

Vinyl now matters more to the music industry

Blog post by Keith Jopling

11 Oct 2022

Spotify

streaming music

Music

It is the final quarter of 2022 and almost time for Spotify Wrapped – that thrilling rush of data that knows more about your music listening habits than you do yourself. However, my Wrapped will be redundant...

Read more …

The fall of Stadia

Blog post by Perry Gresham

7 Oct 2022

stadia

games streaming

games subscriptions

Google’s game streaming service Stadia is shutting down in January 2023, just over three years into its life. What went wrong for such a promising technology with the backing of one of the largest corporations...

Read more …

As Apple hits 100 million songs, the future of music discovery gets complicated

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

6 Oct 2022

music streaming

music discovery

Music creators

Apple Music celebrated the milestone of hitting 100 million songs this week — “more music than you can listen to in a lifetime, or several lifetimes”, global head of editorial, Rachel Newman, wrote...

Read more …

YouTube's secret weapon for overtaking Spotify

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

22 Sep 2022

creator economy

Music creators

YouTube

YouTube has not been quiet about its ambitions to overtake Spotify as the music industry’s top revenue driver by 2025. The clock is ticking, and although YouTube is the most popular platform for music...

Read more …

Web 3.0 is a lane, not a highway

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

2 Sep 2022

web 3.0

metaverse

Blockchain

Facebook was not the first web 2.0 company, but it was the one that took it mainstream to a global audience. Consumers’ digital lives would never be the same again. Whereas web 1.0 had enabled them to...

Read more …

What happens when content supersedes the creator?

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

25 Aug 2022

social media

creator tools

creator economy

It is becoming increasingly clear that the future of the user interface looks like a TikTok feed. Companies from Meta to Spotify and Amazon have tested TikTok-like feeds that are focused on discovery,...

Read more …

Has Blizzard’s mobile gamble paid off?

Blog post by Perry Gresham

11 Aug 2022

mobile games

diablo

microtransactions

Blizzard was once perhaps the most loved game developer – with a devoted fanbase built on the back of iconic titles like Diablo and World of Warcraft. However, over the past few years there has been...

Read more …

If the future of entertainment is niche, how does the Meta approach fit in?

Blog post by Hanna Kahlert

3 Aug 2022

instagram

Kim Kardashian

Reels

The last week has undoubtedly been a hectic one for the developers of Instagram, which recently began trialling a TikTok-esque, video-first focus on its app to some users. The update was not well received,...

Read more …

With Meta’s revenue share program, can rights holders and platforms finally agree?

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

28 Jul 2022

streaming music

user generated content

Content Creators

Over the last week, Meta made headlines three times in relation to music on its platforms (Instagram and Facebook). First, royalty-free music provider Epidemic Sound sued Meta for allegedly allowing users...

Read more …

Beatport’s LabelRadar acquisition is the latest sign of the platforms era

Blog post by Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jul 2022

Beatport

record labels

music industry

This week, online music marketplace Beatport acquired LabelRadar, a service that streamlines the demo submission process for artists and labels. Following previous strategic acquisitions, the deal represents...

Read more …

Why Top Gun: Maverick defines peak film in the streaming era

Blog post by Tim Mulligan

12 Jul 2022

Paramount+

Paramount

Top Gun

The film industry could be forgiven for thinking that the COVID induced disruption of the previous two years could be written off as an aberration in the long-term dominance of the live theatrical view...

Read more …