Spotify acquires audio platform to help turn radio shows into podcasts

Photo by Haithem Ferdi on Unsplash

Spotify's latest acquisition will help the company lure radio broadcasters to turn their shows into podcasts. The company bought Whooshkaa, an Australia-based firm that provides radio broadcasters tools to convert their shows into podcasts. Spotify plans to integrate its technology into its Megaphone suite for podcasters. The goal is to offer stations a way to profit from shows by offering ad-supported podcast episodes.

Whooshkaa can also help with Spotify's other audio efforts. Founder Rob Loewenthal mentioned that his company offered speech-to-text and text-to-speech tech, smart home integration, and "enterprise grade" podcasting tools. But those have not been clearly noted as part of their goals. We wouldn't be surprised if these help Spotify develop its podcasting features in the future.

Source: Engadget

Drake, Pharrell, Elton John, Jaden Smith, etc. to get shows on Beats 1

With the Beats 1 Radio service debut looming over our heads, it seems DJ Zane Lowe called in a few high profile friends to help out. A bunch of celebrities will be hosting their own music shows with genres spanning the classics to something the millennials in your life would love. A few of the guest hosts include Drake, Elton John, Pharrell, Jaden Smith, Disclosure, St. Vincent, and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. And yes, Dr. Dre also gets his own show.  

Source: Cult of Mac 

The Apple Beat: An Overview of Apple Music

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

What a lot of people tend to overlook is that because of iTunes, Apple is actually the number one music retailer in the world. The service celebrated selling 25 billion songs back in 2013, and it took over a decade to build that business which now is expanding to Apple Music.

Apple’s big announcement at this year’s World Wide Developer’s Conference was its new music service aptly titled Apple Music. 

The company that invented iTunes as well as revolutionized buying songs and albums digitally and which really started the iPod revolution a decade ago, had to react to the sudden shift of users buying music to using streaming services like Pandora (not in Canada), Spotify, RDIO, Google Play Music and various others. Here's what you need to know about Apple Music.

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The reason behind DJ Zane Lowe’s move to Apple

It was evident when BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe announced he was moving to Apple that it had something to do with the Cupertino-based company’s new music platform. What wasn’t clear was what he was doing exactly. Curate playlists for them? Well, with the announcement of Apple Music we could see that he will be the main man for Apple’s new Beats 1, live radio station. The first-ever radio station from Apple will pump out music 24/7 to over 100 countries starting June 30^th. He’ll be fronting the show in Los Angeles, Ebro Darden will be doing that from New York, and Julie Adenuga from London. Beats 1 will be free for all listeners. It won’t be hidden behind the subscription paywall. So, users on iOS and Android will be able to listen to Lowe and his fellow DJs dish out the latest tunes from popular artists and up-and-coming musicians.

Source: Engadget