“More and more reports are coming out that Apple’s (AAPL) real interest behind the rumored Beats acquisition is to obtain its subscription streaming service more so than just the accessory business,” D. Mero writes for Seeking Alpha. “When compared to market leaders Pandora (P) and Spotify, Beats has miniscule paying subscribers. Why the interest in BeatsMusic? As Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine put it… no one offers an interactive music service through curated lists. The next song is just as important as the one currently playing. According to Iovine, this is the feature that will define future of subscription streaming services.”
“The music market is moving away from the pay-per-song download model that iTunes uses and towards a streaming model,” Mero writes. “Beats Music boasts a catalog of 20M songs at a monthly rate of $9.99, making it competitive with established leader Spotify. Beats, however, is distinguishing itself from competition by offering a different music experience for each taste out there through a combination of human curation and computer algorithms.”
“The company has compiled thousands of customized playlists with the help of a small army of freelancers curating. Playlists can be based on the work of an artist, a genre, a year or even an activity, like BBQing or working out. The goal is to provide an interactive music service through curated list that’s customized to listener,” Mero writes. “The algorithms developed by Beats for music curation would make for a bonus feature on iTunes. With 800 million iTunes users, Apple and Beats will have ample data to curate music tailored towards each music taste. Additionally, with a little marketing, Beats Music could be advertised to 800 million users worldwide. That miniscule 200k subscription figure is expected to grow at a rapid pace once Apple steps into the picture. When taking into consideration that Beats has converted around 70% of their free users to paid accounts, the potential synergies of an Apple/Beats affiliation overshadow the $3.2billion acquisition cost.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Rap urban street thug rapist ho pimpin ain’t music. Curating will not make it music. Calling a Windows Phone and SmartPhone does not make it so so what makes buying a criminal music pretender a good idea for Apple?
Obviously you have not tried Beat’s service. It caters to all music! Try before you trash, please.
A porn company could make straight movies too. It would still be a porn company. Maybe Apple should show at least as much discrimination as the NBA is, unless it likes making racist scum rich and part of its executive team.
Black and Jewish people up your bum wow.
Wow if only someone had said that to Cook I’m sure he would have changed his mind instantly and bought a garden furniture business instead.
Ah, modern music…mostly crap. If you dig though, you can still find real artists.
kent, you seem to enjoy blathering and baiting on this site. Setting aside the merits of Apple acquiring Beats, the article clearly states that the “…Beats Music boasts a catalog of 20M songs.” I imagine that the Beats music catalog covers the full spectrum of music, not just what you appear to despise.
Stop me if a music service out there already has this because I don’t stream much.
But, I think it would be really cool if I paid $10 a month to play virtually any song I wanted in whatever order I wanted (playlists) just like I do now with my iTunes/iCloud stuff.
Then I imagine someone comes over for a party at my house who also subscribes to iTunes streaming and says, “Hey, that is an awesome playlist. I liked everything on it.”
Then at that point I hit a “share playlist” button and can send it to him/her via Air Drop or via an iMessage.
That would happen almost every time there’s a get together or people ride in a car together . . . “Can I get your playlist?”
“Yep, just sent it.”
To add to that, you could have a “suggestions” switch you toggle between “Lots,” “Some”, “Few” or “None” on any playlist where the service adds songs it thinks would fit into the playlist as a way to discover new music that ties in.
And to build off my previous post, I could share a playlist to someone and then later on they can say, “I added a few songs to it,” and share it back.
I really think something like this would be used with the user base iTunes could have behind it (free month with every new iOS device purchase??) and would rejuvenate a lot of people’s love affair with finding new music again — something I’ve lost interest in — and it would add a social aspect to music.
Maybe Facebook would even play along to allow for shared playlists.
When I was a kid we had “curated music” but back then we called it “the radio.”
Like Nashville KDF radio in the 70s and 80s. “And now we will play the entire new album from AC/DC. It is called Back in Black.”
Radio what’s that Old Fart.
This nifty invention that played “curated music” yet didn’t cost me $120 a year. With those $$$, I could go out and buy my favorite music.
How’s the soundtrack to your life after you stop the monthly payments??
Then again, you can listen to every song ever put out by a major label and hundreds of indie labels for the next 10 years for $1,200.
Honestly, that’s not a bad deal. Back in the day I’d spend that in six months on 100 CDs each with 2 to 3 good songs on them (at best).
I get owning your own music. But a subscription service done right would be a great value to a lot of people.
I am an old fart and I listen to radio. Well, FM. But then, I live in boston where there still is radio worth listening to.