Aside from performing routine tasks like setting alarms and making calls, connected smart speakers are becoming part of the path to purchase, with more than half of US users buying goods via such devices.

Instead of a traditional public offering, the streaming music service will pursue a direct listing of its shares, which will be traded under the ticker symbol SPOT.

In addition to delivering big profits to labels and publishers, playlists are helping new and unknown artists succeed in some profound ways. From popular independent playlists curated in dorm rooms to Spotify’s insanely successful Discover Weekly feature, playlists are becoming a major way for listeners to learn about new music. The music industry has a lot to gain from this new trend, but is there a downside to our ever-increasing penchant for playlists?

There’s nothing more exciting for a new artist than finding out that listeners are starting to learn about and enjoy their music. But using play counts, views, and hits as the only metrics to measure musical success is a bad idea. 

While methods of music discovery vary drastically from person to person, we here look at few avenues which avid music consumers commonly turn to in their search for fresh tunes, depending on the demographic in question.

Why rise to the No. 1 spot when you can just buy it?

Do you remember the Microsoft Zune? Probably not. The Zune was the Microsoft’s response to the Apple’s iPod. The reason why you don’t remember is because the product sucked. Microsoft executives knew it sucked. Users knew is sucked. Journalists knew it sucked.

Bandcamp marked its 6th straight year as a profitable company in 2017 with revenue and usage on the indie music platform rising by double digits across multiple categories, including the sale of physical goods. Industry wide, physical goods sales fell 20% last  year. 

Data drawn from Spotify listeners reveal that we are all teenagers in love.

Streaming music has got where it has today largely by being the future of retail and replacing the download model, which in turn replaced the CD model (though vestiges of both remain). That premium model will continue to be the beating heart of streaming revenues for the foreseeable future but will not be enough on its own. The next big opportunity for streaming is to become the future of radio, which incidentally is around double the size of the recorded music market. In doing so, it will be a classic case of disruptive insurgents stealing market share from long-standing incumbents.