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Spotify launches its promised fundraising feature for artists

Last month, Spotify announced that as part of its coronavirus relief efforts it would soon add new fundraising features for artists on its platform. Today, the company is following through with the launch of “Artist Fundraising Pick,” a feature that allows artists to fundraise for themselves, their crews, or one of the verified music relief initiatives Spotify has already vetted through the Spotify COVID-19 Music Relief project.

At launch, Spotify is working with a small group of fundraising partners to make the donation process easier, including Cash App, GoFundMe, and PayPal.me.

Cash App is currently Spotify’s preferred method, as it has also established a $1 million relief effort for artists. When Spotify artists choose their “$cashtag” as their Artist Fundraising Pick and secure at least one donation of any size, they’ll receive an additional $100 in their account from Cash App up until a collective total of $1 million has been contributed. This works for artists in the U.S. and U.K., but Spotify users worldwide can donate through Cash App.

To use the new fundraising tools, artists (or Spotify for Artists admin users) will go to their Artist dashboard and click “Get started” on the banner at the top to submit their Fundraising Pick. This is a similar process as to how artists choose which track they want to display on their profile.

Once live, fans can donate to the cause through the artist’s profile. In addition to Cash App, PayPal is broadly available and GoFundMe is available in 19 markets.

If the artist chooses to raise for a music relief organization, they can select from those associated with Spotify’s existing charity project, which launched last month in partnership with MusiCares, PRS Foundation, and Help Musicians. It has now expanded to include a wider range of participating organizations, including several local options, and is continuing to grow.

At launch, a handful of artists already have the new feature live, including Tyrese Pope and Boy Scouts who are fundraising through Cash App; Marshmello who is fundraising for MusiCares; and Benjamin Ingrosso who is fundraising for Musikerforbundet.

Spotify says it moved to quickly launch this feature because it believed it was in a unique position to help artists raise money from a global network of fans. However, it cautions that it’s never built a fundraising feature like this before, and considers this a “first version.” Over time, the feature will likely evolve and update based on artist feedback.

“This is an incredibly difficult time for many Spotify users and people around the world — and there are many worthy causes to support at this time,” the company wrote in an announcement. “With this feature, we simply hope to enable those who have the interest and means to support artists in this time of great need, and to create another opportunity for our COVID-19 Music Relief partners to find the financial support they need to continue working in music and lift our industry,” it said.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/22/spotify-launches-its-promised-fundraising-feature-for-artists/

Spotifys app for artists gets a big revamp, adds real-time stats for listeners

Spotify this morning is rolling out an updated version of its app for artists, across both iOS and Android. The new app includes a refreshed design, as well as new analytics like real-time stats on how many people are playing artists’ songs around the world, most notably. Educational materials are also for the first time available through the app’s new Home tab.

Launched two years ago, the Spotify app already offers a way to see real-time listening stats for new releases for the first week they go live. Now it’s expanding its listening stats so artists can see how many people are playing their songs right now.

It’s also now easier to track important milestones in the revamped app, Spotify says — like when a song gets added to a playlist or the artist gains new followers.

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From the Home tab, Spotify will offer more recommendations on how to best use its tools and promote its Co.Lab events.

Here, artists will be able to read articles, watch videos and presentations, get advice from successful artists, learn about product updates and more.

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The audience analytics and music sections have also gotten a visual refresh, designed to make it easier to see the latest stats related to who’s listening, where and similar artists these fans like.

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And in a much-needed addition, artists or their managers can now update the artist’s profile in the app, including the ability to pick a new profile photo, rewrite the bio and update playlists and the Artist’s Pick directly from the Artists page in the app.

For those who are managing multiple artists, it’s now easier to switch between profiles.

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The update to the Spotify for Artists app is one of the more significant to arrive since the analytics dashboard moved to mobile back in 2017. And with the standout feature of real-time listening stats for listeners, the app is even more of a competitor to Apple’s artist dashboard, which just exited beta last month with the addition of Shazam data.

Spotify says the new app is rolling out this week across both iOS and Android.

Correction, 9/24/19 10:20 AM ET: The app offers real-time stats of current listeners for all songs overall, but not for any song. This was unclear. We’ve since corrected. Sorry for the confusion. 

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/spotifys-app-for-artists-gets-a-big-revamp-adds-real-time-stats-for-any-song/

You can now share music from Spotify to Facebook Stories

Spotify this morning announced a new way for you to share music with friends (or fans, if you’re an artist) — by way of a new Facebook Stories integration that includes 15-second song previews. Viewers can also optionally tap on the “Play on Spotify” button in the Story to be redirected to the Spotify app to hear more.

The feature is designed largely with artists and their teams in mind, as it gives them another way to promote their new music across Facebook’s social network. Musicians and their managers often today use the Spotify app’s sharing feature to post their content across social media, including to Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, and elsewhere.

Last year, Spotify introduced a way to share music to Instagram Stories, including their albums, tracks, and playlists, as part of Facebook’s announcement that it was opening up sharing to Facebook and Instagram Stories from other, third-party apps.

At the time, the company said an integration with Facebook Stories was coming soon.

Since its launch on Instagram, the sharing feature has been mutually beneficial for both Spotify and Instagram alike, as it made users’ Stories more engaging while also sending traffic back to the Spotify app for further music discovery.

There’s likely not as much demand for sharing to Facebook Stories, however.

In order to share the 15-second clips to Facebook Stories, you’ll tap the “Share” button from the Spotify app and choose Facebook as the destination.

Side note: We’re not seeing the option to share to News Feed as the picture Spotify published shows (see above. Instead, tapping “Facebook” launches you right into the Story interface, as shown in the tweet above. 

You can then customize your Story as you would normally using the Story editing tools and post it to your profile. Viewers will get to hear the 15-second song clip, and can then tap to go to Spotify to hear more.

Spotify had offered Facebook Story sharing in the past, but the access was later pulled.

These song previews only work when you’re sharing a single track to Stories. If you choose to share other content, like albums, playlists, or an artist profile page, viewers can click into that content, but won’t hear any preview, Spotify says.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/30/you-can-now-share-music-from-spotify-to-facebook-stories/

Spotify is testing its own version of Stories called Storyline

Spotify is testing its own version of Stories — the sharing format popularized by social apps like Snapchat and Instagram that has since made its way to other apps like Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and others. In Spotify’s case, it’s not called “Stories” but rather “Storyline,” and the focus is on allowing artists to share their own insights, inspiration, details about their creative process or other meanings behind the music.

This is very much similar to what Spotify’s “Behind the Lyrics” feature today offers. But instead of pop-up cards that load in time with the music, Spotify Storyline is very much a Stories-like experience, where users tap through the different screens at their own pace, and where horizontal lines at the top indicate how many screens still await them ahead.

By comparison, “Behind the Lyrics” pulls in this sort of background information from Spotify’s partner, Genius — and Genius doesn’t always get things right. This, in fact, was the cause of a bit of an uproar recently, when Paramore singer Hayley Williams took to Twitter to yell at Spotify for running “outdated facts” on “Behind the Lyrics” — something she said her management team had tried to get changed for a year.

After her tweet went viral, Genius reached out to help. But following the incident, music fans pointed out other inaccuracies in “Behind the Lyrics,” including misstated facts on 21 Pilots’ song “Jumpsuit” and Travis Scott’s “Yosemite,” for example.

For Spotify, one possible solution to this problem could be to allow artists and their management teams to take control over what’s displayed as the song plays — while adopting the popular Stories format in the process. But at present, the Storyline feature is appearing on top of “Behind the Lyrics,” which is a bit odd and confusing.

We understand that Storyline is only a test for the time being on both iOS and Android, but not desktop. It’s available in the U.S. and in other markets, but Spotify isn’t commenting as to who may be seeing the test at this time or where.

If you are a part of the test group, you’ll see an indicator on the bottom of the screen that alerts you to the additional content. You can then swipe up anywhere on the screen that’s not a button in order to reveal the story and start tapping. The stories may contain lyrics, text or images.

For the time being, there’s no direct way for any artist or management team to contribute to Storyline. Those involved are working with Spotify directly. But it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that the feature could be something that’s built into the Spotify Artist Dashboard in the future, if it proved to deliver the sort of positive engagement Spotify hopes to see.

The feature, if launched, would give Spotify its own sort of original content — an area that hadn’t fared so well in the past when Spotify was producing its own original videos, for example. And it would better cater to Spotify’s younger demographic who already understand and regularly use Stories in other social apps.

Android Police was first to spot the news (via Reddit), and found it was live on a handful of songs, including Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” and several by Billie Eilish (“Bad Guy,” “Bury a Friend,” “When the Party’s Over,” “Wish You Were Gay”). We also understand it’s showing up on MAX’s “Love Me Less.” Plus, Reddit users claim to have seen on it 2 Chainz’ “Forgiven,” The Beaches’ “Snake Tongue,” and others.

Spotify confirmed in a brief statement to TechCrunch it’s testing Storyline.

“We are always testing new ways to create better experiences for more users,” a spokesperson said, when asked about the feature. The company didn’t offer any information about when it would roll out more broadly.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/13/spotify-is-testing-its-own-version-of-stories-called-storyline/

Alexas new Song ID feature can announce what music is playing next

Amazon today is launching a new feature called “Song ID” that aims to help users discover music they like by using Alexa. When enabled, Alexa will announce the title and the artist name before playing each song while you’re listening to a radio station, playlist or new release on Amazon Music over your smart speaker.

The optional feature for Echo devices can be enabled or disabled by voice at any time by asking Alexa to “turn on Song ID” or “turn off Song ID.”

When listening to music through mobile or desktop apps, it’s easy to give a quick glance at your streaming app to note an artist’s name or song’s title. But when you’re streaming music over a smart speaker, your device may be put away and not as easily accessible. And unlike on terrestrial radio, there’s no DJ to announce what’s coming up next as the music streams over an Amazon Echo.

The new feature aims to make Alexa that DJ, albeit one with less personality in this case — the assistant today only announces the title and name, but doesn’t interject any other information or commentary about the music. (That could be an interesting expansion of Song ID in the future, however, if Amazon chose to go that route. It could serve as an Alexa-based counterpart to Spotify’s Genius-powered “Behind the Lyrics” feature, which gives you the inside scoop on songs.)

Amazon says it was inspired to build the feature based on users’ requests to Alexa about music.

Every day, customers were asking the assistant “hundreds of thousands” of questions about the music that was playing, like “Alexa, what song is this?,” “Alexa, who sings this song?” and more.

The company also notes that Song ID could be useful when you’re checking out music from up-and-comers whose names and song titles you may not know — like Amazon Music’s own 2019 Artists to Watch playlist or its Weekly One program featuring developing artists. 

The new feature is live today across Amazon Music in the U.S. and works on Echo devices, says Amazon.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/06/alexas-new-song-id-feature-can-announce-what-music-is-playing-next/

These artists brought the nations of ‘Game of Thrones’ to life and the exhibition trailer will make your jaw drop

A Game of Thrones and Song of Ice and Fire exhibition is coming to Berlin, bringing to life the work of more than 40 concept artists exploring The World of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin’s history of Westeros.

The teaser trailer for the exhibition – “Unseen Westeros” – is nothing short of breathtaking.

“Unseen Westeros” takes visitors through Westeros, Essos, Ulthos, Sothoryos, and the 80 original works of art are meant to be experienced “like a traveler,” per the official description. Visitors walk from room to room, accompanied by an audio guide and original music.

The exhibition was realized with the help of Martin himself, who insisted that admission be free for all fans who want to experience it. To offset costs, the artists have a Kickstarter with rewards ranging from music downloads to a guided tour with an artist.

“Unseen Westeros” runs Jan. 23-27, 2019. Tickets can already be reserved.

Read more: https://mashable.com/video/game-of-thrones-exhibition-berlin-unseen-westeros/