By Gilbert Falso :: 12:53 PM
Spotify, the Internet streaming music service that took the U.S. by storm this summer is about to cast a black cloud over its loyal user base. No more free music.
Starting in one week, early Spotify adopters will be informed that the days of unlimited tracks are coming to an end. A ten hour per month limit will be imposed on free accounts, and those users will also only be allowed to play an individual song five times per month.
Now to be clear, this was the plan all along. Free accounts were given a six month period of unlimited use in the hopes that users would become addicted and be more than ready to pony up the fees to move to a paid account. Plans run $4.99 per month for ad-free streaming to your desktop, and $9.99 for access to Spotify’s mobile application.
When Spotify launched in the States on July 14th, many people gravitated to the service because of the inherently social nature of the Spotify platform – users could easily share tracks, playlists and new artists with their friends on Facebook. The service was built from the ground up to integrate with social networks.
One cannot help but wonder if users will cough up the cash to keep the tunes playing, or turn to the social networks to voice their displeasure with the upcoming changes and fees to their formerly free service. It could be in this case, that the social network Spotify depends on will come back to bite them in the rear end.
Rock on.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 1:09 PM
The Chinese company In Icons has released an unauthorized and unlicensed Steve Jobs action figure that is eerily realistic in its small-scale resemblance to the recently departed tech entrepreneur.
In Icons says that their goal was to “honor the American icon and great visionary Steve Jobs.”
The 1:6 replica of is wearing Jobs’ trademark outfit of blue jeans (with black belt), New Balance shoes and the familiar black turtle neck. Accessories include two pairs of glasses, an apple, three extra hands, and socks. No iPhone or iPad included.
Apple Inc. and the Jobs estate have not signed off on this model, so it is likely to be a very limited run before Apple’s legal department gets their hands on the company producing them.
Photos? Why of course – see below. Read more…
By Paul Thomson :: 12:24 PM
Yahoo has named the 54-year-old president of PayPal, Scott Thompson, as its next CEO.
Thompson will take the helm of the struggling tech company on January 9th, and will immediately set to work addressing issues around its core online-advertising business, as well as finding a way to attract new talent to the one-time web superstar business.
In an analyst conference call, Thompson said that the company’s “core business assets are stronger here at Yahoo than people believe,” and that the technology and data that Yahoo has access to has the ability to provide better services to advertisers than the company has in the past.
Thompson will also focus on mobile devices at Yahoo, saying that “mobile is a wave that is bigger than people even imagine it to be. How people interact online has changed. Devices take all shapes and sizes. You’d better have a great experience on any device the customer has.”
Yahoo’s former CEO, Carol Bartz, was shown the door in September, after being unable to increase revenue during her tenure of two-and-a-half years.
By Gilbert Falso :: 3:16 PM
TweetDeck, now owned by Twitter, recently released its newest version since the takeover, and in general, it seems not to be well received, especially by long-time power users of the older versions.
Twitter did not officially announce the release, and has completely changed how the program works.
The cross-platform program built on Adobe’s AIR has been abandoned, along with many of its features. Twitter has instead built two brand new programs that function natively in the Windows and Mac environments.
The functionality of the new programs more closely mirrors Twitter’s efforts on its other applications and the web version.
However, some features that die-hard TweetDeck users relied on are gone, or hard to find. For example, TweetDeck now defaults to Twitter’s URL shortener and photo services. Users can still choose to use their own services, but TweetDeck now keeps this choice hidden behind a menu choice, making it very difficult to find.
Annoyed by a spammer tweeting at you? You can still block and report the offense, but it is no longer removed from your column, as happened with the old version.
A sampling of a search for “New TweetDeck” yielded these results:
So if you’re unhappy with the new TweetDeck, what do you do?
Well, download old versions of TweetDeck, of course!
By Cynthia Herbert :: 2:44 PM
All Things D and Mashable are both reporting that Apple is planning a secret media-related event that will occur in New York City sometime this month.
The iPad 3 is most likely NOT the focus for the event, nor is any kind of television / AppleTV gadgetry.
All Things D believes that the event will focus on some small-scale advertising or publishing revelation, while Clayton Morris, anchor of Fox and Friends on the Fox News Channel, thinks it is an event originally scheduled in the fall that will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education.
So far, Morris seems to have the most detailed information about the shindig, saying that, “the event will be in New York rather than in the Silicon Valley because New York is more centrally located for textbook[s] and publishing.”
Eddy Cue, Apple’s Vice President of Internet Software and Services is said to be involved with the event. Cue is in charge of many of Apple’s media units, including the iTunes Store, iBookstore, the App Store, iAd and Apple’s iCloud services.
As for a statement from Apple? Well, in traditional Jobsesque fashion, they are mum on any news of an upcoming event or release. Stay tuned!