There is no doubt the music industry has fundamentally changed over the past decade. The first iteration of challengers to the status quo saw file-sharing programs emerge as a way of copying music. Now, the biggest programs are creating legal ways of doing so.
Spotify is at the forefront of this wave. The business recently expanded into the United States, and is now earning millions by allowing users to stream their music for free or extremely cheaply. And at the forefront of this strategy is one man – Daniel Ek.
Ek has managed to crack the musical holy grail. He’s enabling users to listen to music and share it, legally, and is also doing so while making money. And it’s only getting bigger, having recently integrated with Facebook.
This piece on Forbes delves into the company’s history, including on how Ek convinced Napster co-creator and former Facebook president Sean Parker to invest. As it turns out, he didn’t need any convincing.
“Ever since Napster I’ve dreamt of building a product similar to Spotify,” he said.
Even Mark Zuckerberg felt the service was amazing. “They internalised a lot of what we’ve talked about in terms of social design of apps.”
It’s a pretty simple model. You get access to music through apps, discover music through other playlists, including your friends’, and build a library of music. Then, Spotify has you pay $10 a month to let you take that music anywhere you go.
Ek has plenty of competition. But as he says, there’s plenty of room to move.
“He’s the only tech entrepreneur who’s had the patience to achieve what he has with the record business,” Parker commented, regarding Ek.
But there’s room for more. Ek wants to add more apps, more usability, and transform the service into something even bigger – and something with focus.
“Google has 30,000 employees,” Ek says. “A part of me wonders what if they were all focused on really solving search.”
Microsoft has been in a bit of trouble for awhile now. Although Windows software is still going well, its phones business has suffered for several years and has only recently managed to get off the ground.
But as this piece on BusinessWeek shows, chief executive Steve Ballmer is on a mission. Facing massive competition from companies such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google, Ballmer needs to make the company relevant again and boost recognition.
The piece is an insightful look into Ballmer the man, who is portrayed as a bustling, busy executive, and one who has some fascinating traits – including a near-perfect memory.
“At one point, Ballmer recites in descending order the exact market capitalisation figures of all technology companies valued at more than $20 billion. Then he slices down to $10 billion. And then $5 billion.”
Ballmer has a plan – he wants to control every users’ entertainment and connectivity. With Windows phone, Skype and the Xbox, Microsoft is in a dominant position. And he wants to keep it that way.
The piece goes into a significant number of Ballmer’s plans, including what he’s thinking about Microsoft Cloud and more retail stores, and even his thoughts on duds such as Windows Vista.
And during a quiet moment, Ballmer even says he may have done things differently if he had his time again.
“I’d say probably Bill and I were spending a lot more of our energy on where to go,” he says. “And we should balance our energy better on how to make sure we’re going to get where we want to go.”
If you pay attention to any political news coming out of the United States then you’d know tech companies have been up in arms regarding a piece of legislation called Stop Online Piracy Act. This bill is designed to cut down on sites that are sharing links of copyrighted material, but opponents – including sites such as Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and Twitter – say it goes too far.
In fact, they argue the act is so broad it would enable sites to be shut down even if links were posted on there inadvertently.
And as this piece on the New York Times explains, this is a huge battle. And finally, some governmental officials are taking notice – a revelation prompted by many websites declaring they would go “offline” for a day to protest the bill.
“The rallying of the internet and heavyweights in the technology world was significant because it is one of the few times that the industry has united around a focal point,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School who studies how the internet affects society.
Obama has made a statement saying he wouldn’t sign the bill in its current form, and it’s a move the Motion Picture Association hasn’t taken lightly.
“They believe piracy is a problem, that legislation is needed,” executive vice president Michael O’Leary said. “We take them at their word.”
With protests still ongoing, it’ll be awhile before this is resolved. But this is a good primer.
There are plenty of technology millionaires in Silicon Valley, but there are fewer under the age of 30. Mashable has compiled a quick list of who they are, and how they got to where they are now.
Of course, the list includes Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Groupon’s Andrew Mason. But there are a few you might not expect, including LivingSocial’s Eddie Frederick, and deviantArt’s Angelo Sotira.
The list also includes information on venture capital and whether the entrepreneurs went to college or not – it’s definitely worth a look.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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