Peter Kafka, writing for Recode:
Pandora co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren plans to step down as the streaming music company’s leader, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.
Pandora hasn’t selected a replacement for Westergren, sources say; he will likely stay on at the company he founded 17 years ago until a new CEO is in place.
Josh Constine, writing for TechCrunch:
Spotify is now testing a new “Sponsored Song” ad unit that a company spokesperson tells us is “a product test for labels to promote singles on the free tier.”
Instead of appearing as obvious ad banners like Spotify’s existing ads, labels can pay to have Sponsored Songs appear on playlists you follow or potentially elsewhere on the service. These can be targeted to appear to users with matching listening tastes so they fit alongside their other music. And these Sponsored Songs will be instantly playable and saveable instead of requiring an initial ad click first.
It’s an interesting idea. My first thought was that music listeners really fucking hate when people mess with their playlists/catalog, but I wonder how many of those die-hard music listeners don’t already subscribe to the paid tier of Spotify to begin with? (The paid tier doesn’t have these ads.) A few places are referring to this practice as “payola:”
This is the basic equivalent of payola, the old and illegal tactic where labels would pay radio stations to play their music. If the advertised songs are clearly labeled as paid advertisements, Spotify’s feature might be technically legal, but the effect will basically be the same.
I don’t think I’d go that far.
Apple has announced some new podcast updates. Jason Snell, over at Six Colors, has a good rundown:
The other big news out of today’s session is for podcasters (and presumably for podcast advertisers): Apple is opening up in-episode analytics of podcasts. For the most part, podcasters only really know when an episode’s MP3 file is downloaded. Beyond that, we can’t really tell if anyone listens to an episode, or how long they listen—only the apps know for sure.
Apple said today that it will be using (anonymized) data from the app to show podcasters how many people are listening and where in the app people are stopping or skipping. This has the potential to dramatically change our perception of how many people really listen to a show, and how many people skip ads, as well as how long a podcast can run before people just give up.
Apple kicked off their developer conference this week with a slew of announcements in their keynote. A bunch of the Macs got speed-bumps, the new iMac Pro looks lust-worthy, and iOS 11 has a whole bunch of new features specifically designed for the iPad.
Then there’s the new HomePod speaker. It’s pitched as a great speaker that includes Siri.
Some quick thoughts:
George Slefo, writing for Ad Age:
Google’s Chrome browser will soon come with preinstalled technology that will block the most annoying ads currently marring the web experience, the company confirmed on Thursday.
Publishers will be able to understand how they will be affected through a tool Google is dubbing “The Ad Experience Report.” It will basically score a publisher’s site and inform them which of their ads are “annoying experiences.”
At the same time, Chrome will give publishers the option to force a choice on people running their own ad blocking software: whitelist the site so its non-annoying ads can display or pay a small fee to access the content ad-free.
I’m assuming Google’s annoyingly shitty ads will display just fine? I think I’m fine with the move to build this into the browser, but I think Google’s own ads, specifically their tracking capabilities, are just as big a problem as the ones that dance all over my screen on Alternative Press’ homepage.
Walt Mossberg has penned the last column of his career for Recode:
But just because you’re not seeing amazing new consumer tech products on Amazon, in the app stores, or at the Apple Store or Best Buy, that doesn’t mean the tech revolution is stuck or stopped. In fact, it’s just pausing to conquer some major new territory. And, if it succeeds, the results could be as big or bigger than the first consumer PCs were in the 1970s, or even the web in the 1990s and smartphones in the first decade of this century.
Thanks for everything Walt!
Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:
The seventy-five-page document (PDF) released today by the FCC represents the clearest view yet of Ajit Pai’s point of view on what ISPs offer, how to regulate providers, and what he sees as the Commission’s role in making sure that the open web continues to thrive. And, in short, it’s a crock of shit.
I anticipate that Karl Bode and Jon Brodkin will explore this proposal — titled “Restoring Internet Freedom”, like a gigantic middle finger to anyone who truly cares about freedom on the internet — on a much deeper level than I can, but I’d like to present a few excerpts for your review.
Jacob Kastrenakes, writing for The Verge:
1Password received a handy new feature last week that allows the app to temporarily remove all passwords, credit cards, and other stored data from a user’s devices. The feature is called Travel Mode, and it was created to protect users worried about running into trouble with security agents while traveling.
Increasingly, people are being asked to turn over and unlock their phones at the border, and doing that can expose a huge amount of data. Add in an app like 1Password — a central repository for a ton of private data — and it’s easy to see why someone would be worried about having to hand over their phone.
I can’t believe we need something like this … but we do.
PayPal is taking Pandora to court over their new similar logo:
The digital-payment company says Pandora’s big blue “P,” unveiled in October, damages its business because customers are mistakenly opening the wrong app on their phones.
“I was a little confused when I opened PayPal and Barenaked Ladies started playing,” one PayPal customer tweeted.
Karl Bode, writing for TechDirt:
Surprising absolutely nobody, the FCC today voted 2-1 along strict party lines to begin dismantling net neutrality protections for consumers. The move comes despite the fact that the vast majority of non-bot comments filed with the FCC support keeping the rules intact. And while FCC boss Ajit Pai has breathlessly insisted he intended to listen to the concerns of all parties involved, there has been zero indication that this was a serious commitment as he begins dismantling all manner of broadband consumer protections, not just net neutrality.
As you might have expected, the FCC was quick to release a statement claiming that gutting the popular consumer protections would usher forth a magical age of connectivity, investment, and innovation.
The MP3 format is about to have the patents surrounding it expire. Here’s Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors on what that means:
One of the companies who held patents covering some uses of the MP3 format has terminated its licensing program because its patents have run out. What this means is not that the MP3 format is about to evaporate, but rather, that lots of audio software that previously avoided encoding files into MP3 will now be free to support it without paying a tithe to Fraunhofer.
This is great news for everyone. I’ve spoken to several developers of audio and MP3-related software who have been watching the clock run out on MP3 patents so that they could release MP3 features into the world—both in brand-new apps as well as existing ones—without buying into Fraunhofer’s expensive licensing regime.
And Marco Arment:
Until a few weeks ago, there had never been an audio format that was small enough to be practical, widely supported, and had no patent restrictions, forcing difficult choices and needless friction upon the computing world. Now, at least for audio, that friction has officially ended. There’s finally a great choice without asterisks.
MP3 is supported by everything, everywhere, and is now patent-free. There has never been another audio format as widely supported as MP3, it’s good enough for almost anything, and now, over twenty years since it took the world by storm, it’s finally free.
I still remember the first MP3 I downloaded (it was The Simpsons’ theme song) and not understanding how it was such a small file. I was blown away.
Steve Levy goes inside Apple’s new spaceship campus:
We drive through an entrance that takes us under the building and into the courtyard before driving back out again. Since it’s a ring, of course, there is no main lobby but rather nine entrances. Ive opts to take me in through the café, a massive atrium-like space ascending the entire four stories of the building. Once it’s complete, it will hold as many as 4,000 people at once, split between the vast ground floor and the balcony dining areas. Along its exterior wall, the café has two massive glass doors that can be opened when it’s nice outside, allowing people to dine al fresco.
Josh Constine, writing for TechCrunch:
Today Instagram Stories adds a more subtle and mature but error-prone copycat of Snapchat’s beloved augmented reality selfie filters. The eight initial “face filters,” as Instagram calls them, work exactly like Snapchat, and let you add virtual koala ears, nerd glasses, a butterfly crown or wrinkle-smooth makeup to yourself and friends in photos or videos.
Instagram, like their parent company Facebook, have the whole “just copy your competitor’s idea” thing down to a science at this point.
Ingrid Lunden, writing for TechCrunch:
Today Amazon unveiled the Echo Show, a WiFi-enabled home device with a seven-inch screen that is the newest addition to its Alexa-powered Echo range of home hubs that plays media and responds to voice commands. […] The device, which comes in black and white versions, will cost $229.99 and will be shipped from June 28, with preorders available now. It appears that it will be available first in the U.S. only.
I use my Echo for controlling the lights, playing the daily Jeopardy game, setting cooking timers, re-ordering common items, and playing a “favorites playlist” when I don’t have my phone near. Pretty much in that order. It’s a nice device, I’m glad we have it, but I wouldn’t call it anywhere near essential yet. As they get more powerful and more capable of understanding queries and context, I think this will be an interesting space to watch. This device, however, looks like a bad piece of corporate tech from the ’90s. It’s hideous.
Aaron Pressman, writing for Fortune:
It’s official: For the first time, a majority of American homes have only wireless telephones.
The trend to drop landlines has been growing over the last decade alongside the growth in mobile phone use, according to semi-annual surveys performed by the Centers for Disease Control, which wants to monitor how to contact people for future surveys. But it wasn’t until the end of 2016 that a majority of all households relied solely on mobile phones.
Since leaving my parent’s home for college, I’ve never had a landline. I doubt I ever will.