Thursday, August 2, 2012

Spotify Hits The Road

Expect to see a giant green bus come to a city near you in the upcoming months as Spotify announced it's new initiative yesterday, Spotify on Tour. The tour bus will be making stops Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, St. Louis, New Orleans and Miami, with others to be announced soon. If you dig Spotify, this is an even bigger chance to get into the streaming music service as the bus is equipped with a giant boombox that you can sync with your smartphone. For those 21+, Bacardi will be sponsoring the bus and feature a VIP bar.

This is an exciting initiative for Spotify. The company's numbers indicate that there are four million subscribers and about 15 million active users worldwide. With this tour initiative, their numbers could grow even stronger, especially with the recent release of streaming radio for Android phones. The tour should help to boost the radio users as well.

It's just a giant green boombox?
If Spotify uses this mobile bus for more than just expanding its service, it could be a great thing for artists. The tour will be showcasing up and coming artists like Grouplove, Kendrick Lamar, YACHT, and The Henry Clay People. I can almost see this type of thing working kind of like a Warped Tour, but expanded online more so than Warped - i.e. the streaming syncing boombox! Spotify also plans to release a Facebook app called, you guessed it, "Spotify on Tour." With the amount of exposure bands will get through the tour association with Spotify and the app, it could be a new way of artists breaking out and really getting that exposure they need to make an impact on the public. The app will feature tour diaries, Instagramming, artist sessions, and other ways to engage with the tour online. Because Spotify is so social savvy, I think this will be a great hook for new users, as well as a cool opportunity for rising acts to be seen. I hope that Spotify recognizes the amount of power it has with this as well, and works to bring good music to all, not just "what's hot."

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