Soundtracker (music streaming)

Soundtracker
Type Privately held company
Founded 2008
Headquarters Washington DC, United States
Country of origin United States
Founder(s) Daniele Calabrese
CEO Daniele Calabrese
Industry Music
Employees 20
Website www.soundtracker.fm
Registration Required
Users 1.2 million
Available in 10+ languages
Launched 19 December 2009
Current status Active
Native client(s) on Windows, Windows Phone, Linux, BlackBerry OS, Android, iOS, Chrome OS, and OS X

Soundtracker is a geosocial networking mobile music streaming app [1][2] that enables users to listen to and track the music their friends and neighbors listen to in real time. The service provides over 32 million tracks[3] and allows users to create“music station” choosing between a mix of up to three artists or choosing a music genre. In the free version users can create up to 10 personalized stations, look at the stations that are being played nearby in real time, and interact with other users through instant chat. Paid “premium” subscription remove advertisements and allows users to create an unlimited amount of stations. It was launched in 2009[4] by Soundtracker, and as of December 2014 the service has 1.3M registered users. Soundtracker is available for iOS App Store, Android Google Play, Windows Phone Store, Windows store, Google Glass, BlackBerry World, Samsung Apps, Amazon Appstore,[5] Nook, and Samsung Smart TV,[6] in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, Korean and Russian. Soundtracker is a registered trademark.[7]

Beginnings

The company was formed in late 2008 by a team composed of Daniele Calabrese [8] and 25 software developers and designers.[3] Soundtracker was first marketed in 2010 in San Francisco, and today has offices in Washington DC and Cagliari, Italy.

Evolution

The first mobile platform was iOS and was developed by Daniele Calabrese and his team in Silicon Valley in 2009.[9] The iOS app at its inception featured 13M tracks and allowed geo-tagging.[10]

In 2010 the team moved to Boston where they developed the stations, push notifications, interaction with nearby listeners, and the app for Windows Phone 7.[11][12]

In 2011 the app was integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Songkick.

A website was introduced to give access to non-mobile users, and the app was made available on Android, Java, Windows 7 and BlackBerry platforms in 2010.

In the second half of 2013 a system of in-app purchase and premium subscription was implemented allowing users to create an unlimited amount of stations with a one-month, three months, six months or year plan.

In June 2014 Soundtracker launched Autodiscovery, a button that discovers the music played in a certain area.

In October 2014, the App launched a location and proximity based advertising service with Facebook and Twitter providing tailored native Ads according to location, online activities, personal interests and tastes.

Features

Playlists

Soundtracker allows users to create playlists by choosing between artists, genre, or using the feature Autodiscovery. Each playlist features new music based on an algorithm for music discovery. The playlists are geolocated and users can see on a map the playlists that are being played around them.

Autodiscovery

In June 2014 Soundtracker introduced Autodiscovery, similarly to Shazam, the app allows to discover the track played on-air at the moment by touching the Autodiscovery button on the App’s homepage. If you leave this feature on, Soundtracker detects all the noises played background and recognizex the tracks that have been played. Once the song has been discovered, the App offers the possibility to create a station, buy the track from iTunes and Google Play Music, and watch the relative video on YouTube. Currently autodiscovery is available on the iOS and Android platforms.

Proximity

In September 2014 Soundtracker implemented Proximity.[13][14] This feature allows users to actually listen to music with people nearby in real time. Thanks to the live broadcasting option, it made possible to meet people nearby by tuning into their stations. Proximity was implemented thanks to the Wireless Registry,[15] the first global registry for wireless names and identifiers.

Social network integration

Soundtracker has integrated the major Social Networks,[16] such as Facebook and Twitter, from the initial login to the music sharing preferences. The geolocation and geotag is possible thanks to the integration with Foursquare, providing every venue nearby to be selected when creating a station. Moreover the integration of Songkick provides the latest updates about live concerts and shows of the selected artist.

Analytics platform

Soundtracker captures data from users and combines it with other data sources to generate enriched information that is retrieved and filtered by business intelligence tools;[17] the service analyzes insights from listening trends, web analytics, social media stats, advertising campaigns and marketing activity KPIs and follows everything related to music activities done within the app: listens, favorites, shares, repeats, skips, comments, chats, per station, per song, and per artist through unique action IDs.

Revenue model

As Ad-based music streaming service, the business model is mainly based on different ad fence. Primary location based data analytics for carriers, media companies and music labels. The location based data allows geo-target music campaigns for labels and artists. Moreover, a blend of location-based audio and visual advertising, music subscription and tracks downloads. Finally, development and revenue sharing agreements with telecommunication operators, handset manufacturers, mobile OS makers and car manufactures.

Advertisement

As of October 2014, besides the traditional adv banners in the app, Soundtracker implemented a new way of in-app advertising with Facebook Audience Network and Twitter Mopub. The characteristics of proximity and location, core feature of the service, enable targeted offers and app advices based on the users online activity.

Subscriptions

Soundtracker offers two different type of plans: basic and premium. The basic plan allows users to create up to ten free stations from the music catalogue. Users have limited skips per hour. Instead, with the Premium plan, users can create an unlimited number of stations, listen to the top user generated charts in seven countries divided by music genre. Moreover the Premium enables unlimited skips and no ads.

Royalties

Soundtracker is a non-interactive webcaster with compulsory license from copyright societies and the right to use any music or recording that have been released to the public. It pays royalties to copyright societies, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, the portion of royalties are between 3% and 5% of total revenues. Soundtracker also negotiate directly with indie labels and artists.

Partnerships

Soundtrack has different business partners helping corporate developers building the different application for each platform. Microsoft, with his Bizspark program providing technology, support, visibility, and community to promising startups and entrepreneurs, was the first that helped the development of Soundtracker and was followed by other tech companies such as Apple, Google, Nokia and BlackBerry. Amazon helped in building the app for Kindle Fire, the Soundtracker app was one of the first music app for Amazon devices.[5] With Amazon Web Services Soundtracker implemented cloud, infrastructure, the device messaging and maps APIs which allow users to engage by integrating interactive maps directly into the app, as well as sending out push notifications from the cloud to the user.[18]

In 2014 Soundtracker joined Facebook Audience Network as one of the first music services of the FB Start program.[19] Soundtracker also works with AT&T and Telefonica to provide mobile solution as carrier APIs and is partner of Twitter's mopub.[20]

Soundtracker supports the climate change and has marketing partnerships with Connect4Climate and Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori. With them a campaign for sustainable transportation of music lovers was carried out.

Future projects

The company is developing applications for the automotive industry.[21]

Moreover a special design of the app is being developed for different kind of smartgear and watches.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Eliot Van Buskirk (2011-01-31). "Soundtrckr And Other Location-Based Music Apps Are Heating Up". Business Insider. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  2. ↑ "ultimaora - flash news 24 Corriere della Sera". Corriere.it. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Soundtracker | AngelList". Angel.co. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  4. ↑ "Soundtracker HTML5 Web App". CrunchBase. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Soundtracker - Amazon Apps & Games Developer Portal". Developer.amazon.com. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  6. ↑ "Daniele Calabrese, l'innovazione fa musica | Startupbusiness | Enabling the Italian startup ecosystem". It.startupbusiness.it. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ "BizSpark Startup of the Day - Soundtracker - BizSpark Featured Startups - Site Home - TechNet Blogs". Blogs.technet.com. 2010-09-24. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  9. ↑ "L’Italia che avanza: Soundtracker | Silicon Valley". Siliconvalley.corriere.it. 2011-12-20. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  10. ↑ "Soundtrckr Is Spot-On, Like a Location-Aware Pandora". WIRED. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  11. ↑ Van, Eliot (2010-12-09). "Soundtrckr: What Does Music Have to Do With Location?". Evolver.fm. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  12. ↑ "Pandora + Rdio = Soundtrckr [PICS]". Mashable.com. 2011-02-23. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  13. ↑ r. "Soundtracker - Soundtracker Introduces Proximal Listening". Blog.soundtracker.fm. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  14. ↑ "Soundtrckr Makes Internet Radio Location-Aware, Launching New Mobile Apps | BostInno". Bostinno.streetwise.co. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  15. ↑ "Take control of your Wireless Identity". The Wireless Registry. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  16. ↑ "Harmonic Convergence: Music and Social Networking Join Forces | News Center". News.microsoft.com. 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  17. ↑ "About Soundtracker" (PDF). Scientiamobile.com. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  18. ↑ "Amazon Apps & Services Developer Portal". Developer.amazon.com. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  19. ↑ "Audience Network". Developers.facebook.com. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  20. ↑ "World's Largest Mobile Ad Server and RTB Exchange for iOS and Android". MoPub. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
  21. ↑

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spotify.