Swedish music streaming giant Spotify has acquired podcast advertising and publishing firm Megaphone, in a deal worth a reported $235 million. The deal will help Spotify provide targeted ads, and expand advertising…
Spotify Makes its Move
This week streaming service Spotify announced it had signed podcaster Joe Rogan on a multi-year licensing deal thought to be worth $100 million. Rogan’s self-titled show—downloaded 190m times last month—is one of…
TikTok Founder Trials Resso, a Spotify Challenger
The parent company of social media platform TikTok has launched a brand it hopes will challenge Spotify in the online music streaming market. ByteDance, the Beijing-based startup whose success with TikTok, a…
Acast Shoots for Germany’s Nascent Podcast Market
The popularity of podcasts is soaring. From last year the total number of pods has leapt from 550,000 to 700,000—with over 50% more episodes available this year than last. That equates to…
Spotify is Going Public – It Needs to Start Making Music
Spotify, the Swedish music streaming service, has rarely done things by the book. Even while announcing its intentions to go public yesterday, the firm eschewed a traditional IPO in favor of a…
Can SoundCloud Suddenly Find a Revenue Stream? Probably Not
Alex Ljung, SoundCloud’s embattled CEO, has struck an odd chord in recent days. The empire he built from scratch in 2008 is collapsing around him: Last week the Berlin-headquartered streaming service fired…