Spotify Teardown

Spotify Teardown PDF Author: Maria Eriksson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262038900
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
An innovative investigation of the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into streamed experience. Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. Spotify Teardown contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of “teardown” from reverse-engineering processes, in this book a team of five researchers have playfully disassembled Spotify's product and the way it is commonly understood. Spotify has been hailed as the solution to illicit downloading, but it began as a partly illicit enterprise that grew out of the Swedish file-sharing community. Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform but increasingly resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which such cultural content as songs, books, and films are now typically made available online. Spotify Teardown combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify's “front end” with experimental, covert investigations of its “back end.” The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. The authors' innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behavior.

Spotify Teardown

Spotify Teardown PDF Author: Maria Eriksson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262038900
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
An innovative investigation of the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into streamed experience. Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. Spotify Teardown contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of “teardown” from reverse-engineering processes, in this book a team of five researchers have playfully disassembled Spotify's product and the way it is commonly understood. Spotify has been hailed as the solution to illicit downloading, but it began as a partly illicit enterprise that grew out of the Swedish file-sharing community. Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform but increasingly resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which such cultural content as songs, books, and films are now typically made available online. Spotify Teardown combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify's “front end” with experimental, covert investigations of its “back end.” The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. The authors' innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behavior.

Spotify Teardown

Spotify Teardown PDF Author: Maria Eriksson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780262349680
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An innovative investigation of the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into streamed experience. Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. Spotify Teardown contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of "teardown" from reverse-engineering processes, in this book a team of five researchers have playfully disassembled Spotify's product and the way it is commonly understood. Spotify has been hailed as the solution to illicit downloading, but it began as a partly illicit enterprise that grew out of the Swedish file-sharing community. Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform but increasingly resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which such cultural content as songs, books, and films are now typically made available online. Spotify Teardown combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify's "front end" with experimental, covert investigations of its "back end." The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. The authors' innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behavior.

The Spotify Play

The Spotify Play PDF Author: Sven Carlsson
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635767458
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Two journalists chronicle the David versus many Goliaths story of the streaming music giant’s rise to success. The American edition of the revelatory Swedish book Spotify Untold, the basis of the new Netflix Original series The Playlist, out now! Steve Jobs tried to stop this moment from ever happening. Google and Microsoft made bids to preempt it. The music industry blocked it time and again. Yet, on a summer’s eve in 2011, the whiz kid CEO of a Swedish start-up celebrated his company’s US launch. In the midst of the Apple-Android tech war and a music label crusade against piracy and illegal downloading, Spotify redrew the battle lines, sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, and got the hardline executives at Universal, Sony, and Warner to sign with its “free-mium” platform. In The Spotify Play, now adapted into an upcoming Netflix Original series, Swedish investigative tech journalists Sven Carlsson and Jonas Leijonhufvud, who covered the company from its inception, draw upon hundreds of interviews, previously untapped sources, and in-depth reporting on figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Pony Ma Huateng, and Jimmy Iovine. They have captured the riveting David vs. Goliath story of a disruptive innovator who played the industry giants in a quest to revolutionize the consumption of sound, building today’s largest online source of audio, with more than 50 million songs, one million-plus podcasts, and over 300 million users. Praise for The Spotify Play “Two excellent Swedish journalists recount the historic rise of the company that changed modern music not just as a riveting business tale, but as a lesson in tech geopolitics. Spotify’s Daniel Ek shows why Silicon Valley does not always win.” —David Kirkpatrick, New York Times–bestselling author of The Facebook Effect “An outsider-to-kingmaker narrative that should be read by every gun-shy entrepreneur too spooked by Silicon Valley’s giants to go head-to-head with them. . . . Carlsson and Leijonhufvud have tracked Mr. Ek’s career since the early days, and their expertise shows. The Spotify Play is . . . a revealing character study of an inventor who proved that the willingness to fight for an idea can indeed pay off—and that you don’t have to be a pirate to have fun doing it.” —Wall Street Journal

Spotify For Dummies

Spotify For Dummies PDF Author: Kim Gilmour
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119961491
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
The ultimate beginner guide to the groundbreaking music service, Spotify! Spotify is a free online streaming music platform that allows users to listen to songs on demand over the Internet--without having to buy or own the actual tracks. This fun and friendly guide walks you through how best to use this sweet-sounding service. Covering everything from using Spotify on selected mobile phones to creating and sharing your own playlists, Spotify For Dummies has it all. Experienced author Kim Gilmour details the ins and outs of this revolutionary music, from installing and setup to discovering new artists and taking your musical enjoyment to new levels. Explores the social networking aspects of Spotify and how to integrate with them Helps you navigate through the various editions of Spotify Shows you how to take Spotify with you on your mobile device Encourages you to merge your own music collection with Spotify This book is spot on! Start using Spotify today with this handy guide by your side.

Streaming Music

Streaming Music PDF Author: Sofia Johansson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351801988
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Streaming Music examines how the Internet has become integrated in contemporary music use, by focusing on streaming as a practice and a technology for music consumption. The backdrop to this enquiry is the digitization of society and culture, where the music industry has undergone profound disruptions, and where music streaming has altered listening modes and meanings of music in everyday life. The objective of Streaming Music is to shed light on what these transformations mean for listeners, by looking at their adaptation in specific cultural contexts, but also by considering how online music platforms and streaming services guide music listeners in specific ways. Drawing on case studies from Moscow and Stockholm, and providing analysis of Spotify, VK and YouTube as popular but distinct sites for music, Streaming Music discusses, through a qualitative, cross-cultural, study, questions around music and value, music sharing, modes of engaging with music, and the way that contemporary music listening is increasingly part of mobile, automated and computational processes. Offering a nuanced perspective on these issues, it adds to research about music and digital media, shedding new light on music cultures as they appear today. As such, this volume will appeal to scholars of media, sociology and music with interests in digital technologies.

Teardown

Teardown PDF Author: Gordon Young
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520377540
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
"After living in San Francisco for fifteen years, journalist Gordon Young found himself yearning for his Rust Belt hometown: Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors and the “star” of the Michael Moore documentary Roger & Me. Hoping to rediscover and help a place that had once boasted one of the world’s highest per capita income levels but had become one of the country's most impoverished and dangerous cities, he returned to Flint with the intention of buying a house. What he found was a place of stark contrasts and dramatic stories, where an exotic dancer could afford a lavish mansion, speculators scooped up cheap houses by the dozen on eBay, and arson was often the quickest route to neighborhood beautification. He also uncovered the misguided policies, flawed leadership, and unforgiving economic trends that lead to disasters like the Flint water crisis. Updated with a new preface, Young skillfully blends personal memoir, historical inquiry, and interviews with Flint residents, constructing a vibrant tale of a once-thriving city still fighting - despite overwhelming odds - to rise from the ashes. Hard-hitting, insightful, and often painfully funny, Teardown reminds us that cities are ultimately defined by the people who live there."--Back cover.

Appetite for Self-Destruction

Appetite for Self-Destruction PDF Author: Steve Knopper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416594558
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world -- and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper shows that, after the incredible wealth and excess of the '80s and '90s, Sony, Warner, and the other big players brought about their own downfall through years of denial and bad decisions in the face of dramatic advances in technology. Big Music has been asleep at the wheel ever since Napster revolutionized the way music was distributed in the 1990s. Now, because powerful people like Doug Morris and Tommy Mottola failed to recognize the incredible potential of file-sharing technology, the labels are in danger of becoming completely obsolete. Knopper, who has been writing about the industry for more than ten years, has unparalleled access to those intimately involved in the music world's highs and lows. Based on interviews with more than two hundred music industry sources -- from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning -- Knopper is the first to offer such a detailed and sweeping contemporary history of the industry's wild ride through the past three decades. From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the '80s and '90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen. With unforgettable portraits of the music world's mighty and formerly mighty; detailed accounts of both brilliant and stupid ideas brought to fruition or left on the cutting-room floor; the dish on backroom schemes, negotiations, and brawls; and several previously unreported stories, Appetite for Self-Destruction is a riveting, informative, and highly entertaining read. It offers a broad perspective on the current state of Big Music, how it got into these dire straits, and where it's going from here -- and a cautionary tale for the digital age.

A Ghost's Memoir

A Ghost's Memoir PDF Author: John McDonald
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262632850
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
The story of the ghostwriting of Alfred P. Sloan's best-selling memoir, General Motor's attempts to block the book's publication, and the author's eventual triumph over the corporation. Published in 1964, My Years with General Motors was an immediate best-seller and today is considered one of the few classic books on management. The book is the ghostwritten memoir of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (1875-1966), whose business and management strategies enabled General Motors to overtake Ford as the dominant American automobile manufacturer in the 1920s and 1930s. What has been largely unknown until now is that My Years with General Motors was almost not published. Although it was written with the permission of General Motors -- and slated for publication in October 1959 -- at the last minute General Motors tried to suppress the book out of fears that some of the material in it could become evidence in an antitrust action against the company. This book, by John McDonald, Sloan's ghostwriter, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the book's writing, its attempted suppression, and the lawsuit that eventually led to its publication. McDonald's narrative is partly the David-and-Goliath story of a lone journalist taking on the world's then-largest corporation and partly a study of strategy in its own right. McDonald's struggle to publish the book led him to navigate a complicated course among the competing interests of General Motors, Fortune magazine (his employer), and Time, Inc. (Fortune's owner). In many ways this "book about the book" parallels the Sloan book as a tale of successful, brilliantly planned strategy.

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory PDF Author: John Seabrook
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393241939
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
"An utterly satisfying examination of the business of popular music." —Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic There’s a reason today’s ubiquitous pop hits are so hard to ignore—they’re designed that way. The Song Machine goes behind the scenes to offer an insider’s look at the global hit factories manufacturing the songs that have everyone hooked. Full of vivid, unexpected characters—alongside industry heavy-hitters like Katy Perry, Rihanna, Max Martin, and Ester Dean—this fascinating journey into the strange world of pop music reveals how a new approach to crafting smash hits is transforming marketing, technology, and even listeners’ brains. You’ll never think about music the same way again. A Wall Street Journal Best Business Book

Tarzan Economics

Tarzan Economics PDF Author:
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316427381
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Taking the lessons learned from his years studying the rise and fall of the modern music industry, Spotify's Chief Economist has crafted “a compelling and generous read” (Scott Galloway) that provides the tools to recognize and adapt to disruption in any industry. As the chief economist at Spotify, Will Page has had the best seat in the house for witnessing—and harnessing—the power of disruptive change. Music has often been the canary in the coal mine for major technological and societal shifts, and if there’s one thing Page learned from the digital revolution, it’s that businesses must be ready to pivot. Drawing practical lessons from a variety of fresh case studies covering Radiohead, Starbucks, and even Groucho Marx, Page examines the eight principles that disruption has thrown into sharp relief as keys to survival in any sector. Businesses need to be ready and willing to change and, if necessary, be prepared to rebuild entire organizations and business models to do so. Pivoting through disruption has everything to do with being able to see the revolutionary changes around the corner, recognizing your strengths, and having the confidence to let go of the old vine of doing business and grab onto the new. A rare book of economics offering actionable takeaways in easy-to-understand language, Tarzan Economics is the must-read book for anyone staring at their own Napster moment and wishing they knew how to fail-safe their business.