Earlier this year, Amazon rolled out a new feature that allowed Alexa device owners to create their own custom skills using preconfigured templates. Today, Amazon is expanding Alexa Blueprints, as the service is called, to include a handful of new templates designed for families and roommates. Thes…

Source: More Alexa ‘blueprints’ arrive, offering customizable voice apps for families and roommates | TechCrunch

Fresh research has revealed that Google has pulled ahead of Amazon in the smart speaker department, the latest move by the tech giant in its quest to be the best in the biz at tracking users and building speech recognition tools.

Google Overtakes Amazon In Smart Speakers – hypebot

When Spotify detects ad blockers, it warns the free user at least once before suspending them. But the streamer is also building new ways to detect and block the ad blockers.

Source: Spotify, Other Streamers Losing Revenue To Ad-Blockers – hypebot

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently sat down to discuss Apple Music and its place in the burgeoning music streaming world, once again touting the service’s human content curation as a key benefit over competitors like Spotify.

Source: Cook says Apple not in music streaming for the money, touts human content curation

How CEO Daniel Ek plans to beat Apple, Amazon, and Google at the music game.

Source: Spotify’s $30 billion playlist for global domination

Spotify missed big on its bottom line. Investors sold the stock on the news. In recent after-hours trading, shares in the streaming music company were down $14.30 a share, or 8.41%, to $155.70

The streaming music company’s number of paying subscribers grew to 75 million during the first three months of the year, in line with expectations and maintaining Spotify’s lead in a heated battle with Apple Music, which has 40 million paying subscribers. But diminishing revenue-per-user, as Spotify races to boost its membership through discounted family and student plans, took a toll.

Source: Spotify Q1 earnings – Business Insider

A 21-month study finds that as users are fed more ads, they listen less; some subscribe, but not enough to compensate for lost ad revenue.

Source: Pandora Learns the Cost of Ads, and of Subscriptions | WIRED

The streaming company proved it could get the Napster generation to pay for music. But will Spotify’s paywall make it profitable?

Source: Spotify Subscriptions Helped The Streaming Company Win Listeners | WIRED

Podcasting continues to evolve as it engages and entertains growing audiences. And avid podcast fans can play a crucial role for marketers and advertisers looking to identify what’s next for this burgeoning medium.

Source: Connecting Advertising: How Avid Podcasters Influence Purchasing Patterns

As Spotify prepares to float itself on the stock market with a valuation of between $6-$20 billion, who will be receiving a slice of the cash?

Source: What Streaming Music Services Pay — Information is Beautiful

How much do streaming apps like Spotify, Apple, Tidal and Pandora pay the music industry? How likely is it that a musician can earn minimum wage from streaming?

Source: What Streaming Music Services Pay — Information is Beautiful

This chart shows how important streaming has become for the music industry.

Source: • Chart: Music Streaming Accounts for 65% of U.S. Music Revenues | Statista

Spotify thinks it is going to do very well this year, by generating a big increase in revenue and paid subscribers, while improving its margins. And it thinks its losses will shrink. It would be surprising if Spotify didn’t have a good story to tell at this point. Its shares will start trading — via a “direct listing” instead of a traditional IPO, next Tuesday, April 3.

Source: Spotify told Wall Street it is going to have a very good year in 2018 – Recode