VNUE Announces Deal with Radio Operations International

VNUE announced today that it has signed its first radio monitoring agreement utilizing its patent-pending Soundstr technology, with Radio Operations International. The deal will utilize the tech to provide accurate music play reporting to reduce licensing costs to radio stations, and also to increase transparency to all stakeholders.

VNUE’s Soundstr is an innovative hardware and cloud computing solution that will not only help bars, restaurants and venues to reduce licensing costs, but also radio stations, many of whom pay far more than their fair share for blanket music licenses.

TuneGO Partners with Priority Records

TuneGO has announced a partnership with Priority Records. The label, responsible for launching the careers of Eazy-E, N.W.A., Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and many others, will provide distribution for TuneGO content in the United States and its parent company, Universal Music Group will handle the global market.

“This is exactly what we have planned from the beginning for TuneGO and TuneGO Music Group,” John Kohl, co-founder and CEO, TuneGO, said.

Pandora to Acquire Audio Ad Tech Firm AdsWizz

Pandora today announced it will acquire AdsWizz, the global leader in digital audio ad technology. The addition of AdsWizz will upgrade Pandora’s ad tech capabilities, provide its advertisers with greater audience reach, and expand the company’s revenue opportunities.

AdsWizz is one of the few ad tech firms that is completely dedicated to digital audio, serving some of the largest players in the industry. With digital audio advertising growing 42% year-over-year, according to the IAB, the combined offering of Pandora and AdsWizz will capitalize on this trend, while making it easier for publishers to monetize their inventory, and for advertisers to buy and measure their campaigns.

Pandora Partners With Linkfire as the Premier Streaming Music Data Provider

Pandora today announced a partnership with leading smart link aggregator, Linkfire, to make discovering music easier for fans, while amplifying marketing efforts for labels and artists. Pandora is the first music streaming service to provide Linkfire with advanced attribution data to help artists understand how their content is performing in order to create informed promotional campaigns to effectively reach their audience.

“We have always been committed to helping artists find their fans and connect with Pandora’s massive listener base,” said Chris Phillips, Chief Product Officer, Pandora. “Our integration with Linkfire provides the industry with unprecedented ways to understand music streaming consumption and makes direct-to-fan marketing more impactful than ever.”

Spotify Launches Self-Serve Advertising Platform in Canada and the UK

Last Fall, Spotify launched Spotify Ad Studio, the first-ever audio self-serve advertising platform, in the US. Today, the platform embarks on a world tour as the public beta expands to Canada and the UK.

Spotify Ad Studio makes it easy for marketers of all sizes to create audio ads on Spotify in minutes, letting them connect with the music streaming service’s highly engaged audience and tap into culture. Over the last five months, a wide range of US businesses and advertising agencies have used the platform to reach the right people in the right moment. And across the board, they’re seeing results.

TuneGO Announces New Song Review Service

TuneGO, a music platform that connects independent artists with a global community of music fans and industry professionals, is now offering a song review service. TuneGO Song Reviews are available in three packages: Gold, Platinum and Diamond, and offer artists insight from up to 200 music fans, and options for assessments on where a song ranks in a music genre, its market potential and likelihood of chart success. During the month of March only, the Diamond song review, which includes a comparison to 100,000 major label releases in the song’s genre, comes with a free Muzen radio ($90 value), a retro radio and Bluetooth speaker that won the 2017 CES Innovation Award.

“Writing and producing music is a very personal endeavor and many artists are unsure as to the quality and the universal appeal of their work. Having access to song reviews is an invaluable tool for a musician as it gives them guidance in what’s working or what’s not so they can continue to perfect their song,” said John Kohl, co-founder and CEO of TuneGO. “In the past, this kind of feedback has only been available to artists working with big record labels. We knew offering this service direct to artists could make their journey easier. That is what we’re all about: finding ways to level the playing field for artists and provide new pathways to success.”

TiVo Music Metadata to Provide Select Artist Images to Google’s Music Services

TiVo today announced that Google has selected TiVo Music Metadata to provide select artist metadata and artist images for YouTube Red, YouTube Music and the Google Play Music store. Using TiVo’s Music Metadata offerings, YouTube and Google can connect music videos to artists’ imagery and songs for a more immersive entertainment experience.

YouTube and Google can also programmatically use the TiVo music metadata to design a more dynamic user interface that provides a more visually immersive experience. With TiVo Music Metadata covering 34 million tracks worldwide—refreshed daily and growing through frequent updates—TiVo enables content providers to give consumers complete control of their digital music in real time.

Issue #316: The Data-Driven Future of Media, Entertainment; Spotify Shows Drive to Win Nashville’s Support

The Data-Driven Future of Media and Entertainment — towardsdatascience.com

After a decade long struggle, the music ecosystem seems to have gotten over the shock of technology disruption and is now actively embracing technological advances. With the rise of mobile, streaming, social media, and connected devices, musicians have never been closer to their audience.

With Open House and New Hires, Spotify Shows Drive to Win Nashville's Support — www.billboard.com
Over the last few years, Spotify has been investing more and more resources into both “sides” of Nashville: not only educating country-leaning major labels on the value of streaming, but also treating the city as a key focal point for improving relationships with indie and up-and-coming acts.

India: a music market on the rise, but still facing big challenges — musically.com
At the end of September this year Music Ally was invited to attend the inaugural All About Music conference in Mumbai, India.

Sirius XM Announces Live Concerts & DJ Sets for NYE Celebrations — www.billboard.com
Check out some of the live performances and DJ sets Sirius XM has to offer for the NYE celebrations.

Taylor Swift’s Rivals This Holiday: Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole — www.nytimes.com
The popularity of streaming holiday-music classics has made record labels more reluctant to release non-Christmas albums in the final quarter.

Shazam Announces 'Next to Know' Breaking Artist Program, Reveals 10 Artist to Watch in 2018 — www.billboard.com
The music discovery app has picked Sofi Tukker, Lil Pump and BTS as part of its artists to watch in 2018.

What Does the Future Hold for Retail Audio Sales? — audiophilereview.com

Paul Wilson looks at the current way in which audio components are purchased, and wonders about the future…

Fanburst Is Innovating Music Sharing for Musicians — www.noiseprn.com
Fanburst is making a big name for itself by omitting the difficulties in a streaming platform, including upload limits and unique reposts.

Mixcloud Taps Gracenote for Advanced Music Recognition to Improve Royalty Payment Process for Rights Holders

Gracenote announced today that it will power advanced music recognition for Mixcloud, the world’s fastest growing digital audio streaming platform. Using Gracenote MusicID, the industry’s leading music recognition technology, Mixcloud will more accurately identify copyrighted audio content on its music platform to ensure proper royalty payments to rights holders.

Mixcloud’s catalog maintains more than 12 million DJ sets, radio shows and podcasts and ingests more than 1,000 hours of user-generated content every day. As the Mixcloud community of more than 1.2 million creators upload music mixes, radio shows and podcasts, Gracenote automatically fingerprints each piece of content to identify copyrighted work and enable compliance. Once Gracenote MusicID identifies a song, Mixcloud maps it to its proprietary database of artist, label and publisher rights holders to facilitate proper and timely royalty payments.

Issue #295: How Your Data Is Shaping the Future of Music; Your Favorite Radio Hits May Go Silent

Your Data Is Shaping the Future of Music — pigeonsandplanes.com
If streaming data is the new metric for success, we are all A&Rs.

Why the last big music label against streaming caved in — www.irishtimes.com

The ECM record label was long a holdout against streaming, with boss Manfred Eicher believing in the integrity of the “album”.

Your Favorite Radio Hits May Go Silent — www.bloomberg.com
Songwriters threaten to withhold their music if stations don’t give them a bigger share of revenue.

Those 'Fake Artists' on Spotify? Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Holland Says There Was 'No Special Deal' — www.billboard.com
After four months of quiet, Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Hoglund has finally spoken out at length in response to allegations that his company was promoting “fake artists” on Spotify’s playlists, and undercutting licensing fees and royalty payouts to traditional labels.

Voise Platform Upgrades to Alpha 0.2; Token to be Listed on Aussie Exchange — medium.com
Voise, one of this year’s most exciting blockchain projects, has upgraded its music streaming platform to include new features and fix the old ones.

Beginner’s Guide to Music MetaData. — medium.com
All that you need to know about music metadata. What are recordings, releases, release groups, tracks, etc.

Sonos One users can now ask Alexa to play Spotify music — techcrunch.com
In October, Sonos launched the Sonos One, raising the bar on what is already the gold standard in wireless whole-home audio. The big new feature? An..

Spotify's RapCaviar turned the playlist into a movement, now Viva Latino is next — www.theverge.com

Spotify’s biggest Latin playlist is rolling out video internationally.

Amazon Music app adds Chromecast support — www.androidpolice.com
Amazon and Google’s relationship over the past few years has been nothing short of an epic love-war popcorn-worthy chess battle. Amazon removes Chromecasts… by Rita El Khoury in Amazon, Applications, News

What The End To Net Neutrality Means For Internet Streaming — www.npr.org
NPR’s Elise Hu talks to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler about what the FCC decision to end so-called net neutrality means and what it will mean to consumers of internet streaming.

The Amazing Ways Spotify Uses Big Data, AI And Machine Learning To Drive Business Success

Spotify, the largest on-demand music service in the world, has a history of pushing technological boundaries and using big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive success.

The digital music company with more than 100 million users has been busy this year enhancing its service and tech capabilities through several acquisitions. Industry watch dogs predict the company will launch an IPO in 2018.

Read Article: Forbes

TiVo Brings Powerful Music Metadata to BuzzAngle Music

TiVo announced that BuzzAngle Music, a leading innovator in music consumption analytics, has licensed Music Metadata from TiVo. The combination of data analytics from BuzzAngle Music embedded with Music Metadata from TiVo directly connects consumption to recommendations, providing some of the most accurate and unique research findings currently available in the industry.

“Six of the top eight music services in the U.S. and Europe already utilize both TiVo Music Metadata and BuzzAngle’s music data analytics platform, making this integration a natural fit for the industry,” said Roz Ho, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer and Metadata, TiVo. “Our collaboration greatly enhances data analytics reporting and eases the integration of BuzzAngle data feeds for all customers, enabling new ways to discover and expand music experiences.”