Friend sent an email to the guys earlier today, and it helped me gather my thoughts together (albeit rather quickly, and succinctly) about the streaming battle. For the record, I’m a paying Spotify user. I previously was a paying Beats Music user. I like the former better for the combined desktop and mobile experience, plus social. But as a standalone mobile product I enjoyed Beats much better.
I’m gonna give Apple Music a spin, too, and maybe I’ll have more expansive thoughts down the line. But for now, the email:
Drake is definitely one of (if not the) biggest names in music. Having him on board for Beats Music is definitely a strong arm move. I think Jay-Z and the owners of Tidal can definitely be cooler than apple since they won’t be bigger. Finding the right music curators (ie Scott Vener) should be part of the any stream music plan. My 2 cents….
My reply:
Word. I think Tidal’s fight isn’t to be bigger, they just aren’t armed that way. But if they can gather market share, ie T-mobile to Verizon and create some new rev streams and content opportunities, they’ll be good. There’s no face to it in the way there is with Daniel Ek and Jimmy/Tim Cook who speak often about the service and campaign for it. That’s a problem, cause false narratives pop up (its twice the money! when its not). It’s gonna be a challenge cause Spotify and Apple Music have such a head start.
Scott actually has his own service, Undrtone, that he launched, its more a social music curation experience. Worth checking out.
Yesterday was interesting cause Apple was aiming at everyone, from Spotify to Google Wallet to Yahoo News Digest to Shazam to Dash and more; they didn’t even use clever pseudonyms either.
(Smart move for Drake, though, as always; he walks his own path away from Jay and Ye.)
