Spotify to Get More Social, Revamps Music Recommendations

The music streaming superstar du jour Spotify has kindly revealed a bit more about its progress and how great it can be for artists and the music industry at large. Spotify CEO and Co-founder Daniel Ek talked about online music at New Music Seminar in Los Angeles and, while there were some general trends and observations, the focus was clearly on Spotify. Not that anyone expected anything else. The biggest question, when is Spotify coming to the US, didn't get any answers, but there were some interesting tidbits in the keynote.

He talked about the opportunities the music business as a whole has thanks to the online avenues. While there wasn't anything new, the main points are well worth reiterating. He said that people listened to more music than ever, obviously not all of it legally, and this might prove to be a great opportunity if it can be monetized well, which he thinks it can.

One great thing about the technology today is that it enables people to access all their music everywhere, something they're more than willing to pay for, he believes. He also considers that the amount of illegal file-sharing is a great sign that people want and consume more music and that if that activity can be lured to a legal and monetizable service, it would be a huge revenue generator even at the lowest rates.

However, to date, Spotify hasn't been so successful at getting people to pay as they'd want to. Despite having seven million users in Europe, only 250,000 of those have been converted into paying subscribers. He also said that, even if they can get the music for free, users still buy tracks using Spotify's referral program, even the subscribers.

Finally, he said that one big new focus for Spotify is now the social element which has been neglected so far. The service wants to make it easier for users to interact and share their music but also for artists to engage with their fans and get exposure. To that respect, Spotify is updating its music recommendation feature by enabling algorithm-based recommendations to complement the static ones it had so far. With the amount of user data Spotify had, it's a wonder what took it so long. [via Mashable]