Members Anderton Posted March 30, 2016 Members Share Posted March 30, 2016 Well, well, well...according to the Verge, quoting from a Tidal press release, Tidal now has 3 million subscribers (not including trial subscriptions) and 1.35 million are paying the $19.99 for the higher-quality stream. However, to put that into perspective, in less than a year Apple Music has 11 million subscribers, Spotify has close to 30 million, and NetFlix has 75 million. So Tidal is doing okay, but it's going to have to do a lot better to remain relevant given its market share...and Spotify just raised 1 billion although some would consider the terms on the Draconian side. So looking beyond the numbers, I think it's safe to conclude that streaming is getting traction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted March 30, 2016 Author Members Share Posted March 30, 2016 And here's the latest news about SoundCloud..."SoundCloud Go" subscription service. $10 a month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted March 30, 2016 Members Share Posted March 30, 2016 Interesting! I guess the exclusive artist thing must be working for Tidal. I must say I'm pretty amazed by the high percentage of full quality stream users -- particularly since that slice was only 3% under the startup owners when the CD-qual streams were the only major distinguishing feature. I've read speculation in one of the tech rag reviews that suggested many top tier users may not even have discovered how to turn on the full-quality setting. And, of course, many stream subscribers use mobile devices. I'm sure the app is smart enough to switch to a lo fi/low bandwidth stream when on the mobile network instead of wi-fi, but I imagine that cuts down on Tidal's b/w bills. With regard to SoundCloud... they've been talking about that for a while. TBH, I despise the SoundCloud interface so much it would be pretty much the LAST place I would be inclined to want to go to listen to music. When I find out about a new up and coming artist, the first thing I do is check to see if they're in the stream-o-sphere proper in Google Music and listen to them there if possible. Or I'll go to their website if they're smart enough to have their music there. SoundCloud is about the last place I'll head. Maybe second to last. Soundclick has some pretty annoying ads, but at least the player doesn't shove random artists into the queue (apparently trying to push freeloader uploaders to shell out for a paid account that allows the artist to control what plays on his page). I'd be curious to see how Google Music is doing, numbers-wise. Having been on 7 different services in 10 years, I have some distinct views on what makes a good service and Google Music seems to me to be head and at least one shoulder above the other major players I've used. (I haven't used Tidal or Apple Music yet but in-depth reviews I've read very much make it appear I wouldn't be satisfied.) But Google doesn't know how to market and their design notions are so, um, something, that I literally dug up a way to modify its rather gross color scheme (gross unless you really like lots of orange), using a 'personal restyler' (Stylebot.com where GM users can get the free extension as well as my free GM 'skin,' Gray Flannel Cool -- which also extends the width of the way-too-narrow queue window to something usable.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted March 31, 2016 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2016 More SoundCloud news...a partnership with Sony that puts 110 million tracks on their platform. If the average track lasts three minutes, that's a 627 years-long playlist - even longer than a Grateful Dead concert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 1, 2016 Members Share Posted April 1, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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