14 DAY TRIAL // As part of its efforts to revamp (and possibly even re-brand) Beats Music later this year, Apple has acquired Semetric, a metrics company that helps record labels track digital sales, social stats, and sales.
The acquisition was discovered after Companies House published documents according to which Semetric’s registered address had changed to 100 New Bridge Street in London, which is where Apple Europe Limited is also headquartered. To think that people actually look after things like these.
Apple confirms
A spokesperson for the Cupertino giant told The Guardian, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plan,” which is about as much of a confirmation as Apple will give on any given acquisition.
Launched in 2008 as an analytics platform for the music industry, Semetric’s Musicmetric tool is used by the big labels and other people in the industry to track things like BitTorrent downloads, social networking involving certain songs or artists, etc. The platform has also expanded its reach to include analytics of YouTube videos and audio streaming services.
Apple is thought to have secured this analytics tool in order to help improve Beats Music, which it plans to reportedly re-tool and even re-brand as part of a new launch later this year. One of the major changes occurring with the service is said to be the implementation of a new pricing scheme, giving the likes of Spotify some serious competition.