Spotify

A reader asked the Denver Post why it hadn’t covered a grisly and salacious 2014 murder in Littleton, CO. It hadn’t, because the crime never happened.

But there it is on YouTube and Spotify, accumulating millions of views with seemingly AI-generated voiceovers and faces. True crime fans say they reported the videos months ago after YouTube recommended them, but they aren’t being removed.

Monthly active users increased by 14 percent year-over-year to 626 million, but 5 million short of Spotify’s expectations for the quarter. Subscribers also increased by 12 percent to 246 million, with Spotify reporting a record-high operating income of €266 million (about $288.8 million).

The growth timeline “exceeded even our own expectations,” said CEO Daniel Ek. “This all bodes very well for the future.”

The streaming music service has launched a new Parental Guide detailing its tools for managing your kids’ listening habits as well as its efforts to keep the platform safe.

Spotify’s actual parental controls are limited to filtering out explicit content and controlling the playback of certain artists. For a fully curated experience, you’ll need to spring for Spotify Kids, which is part of the Premium Family package.

The iconic desktop media player has enjoyed several revivals, but none as technically impressive as Rodrigo Méndez’s Linamp.

Powered by a Raspberry Pi 4B, the stereo’s touchscreen interface features Winamp’s recognizable UI, allowing music to be played from CDs, storage drives, and even Spotify. Most of the iconic Winamp features are there, including playlist editing, but those hypnotic visualizers are, unfortunately, MIA.

Google introduced AI extensions last year, letting the bot formerly-known-as Bard connect with other Google apps and services. It’s continued expanding the feature, most recently adding a connection between Gemini and YouTube Music, but now Android Authority has found code in the app indicating Gemini could connect to Spotify, too, eventually.

Hopefully, Gemini works better than our experience with the Rabbit R1.

The iPhone maker has filed a suit at the EU’s General Court, according to Bloomberg, after arguing that the investigation into the App Store’s music-streaming app distribution had failed “to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm.”

The probe, sparked by an antitrust complaint Spotify raised in 2019, also ordered Apple to stop preventing music-streaming apps from advertising cheaper deals available outside the App Store.

Julie McNamara, head of podcast studios, announced her departure on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. The company has seen a steady stream of exits as it pulls back on its podcast business.

McNamara’s departure follows deep layoffs at Spotify as well as cuts to its programming as it tries to make the podcasting department profitable.

In her Soundbite newsletter this week, Ashley Carman covers Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee. Lee is bucking the system by keeping the album, which earned a stellar Pitchfork review, off all the big music services like Spotify.

Instead, you can download WAVs from this Geocities site — I love that I just wrote that — or listen to it on YouTube.

Monthly active users were up 19 percent year-over-year to 615 million, while subscribers were up 14 percent to 239 million. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek noted that the company just turned 18-years old, and “as an adult company we are now consistently profitable, which is great news.”

Ok, so where’s Spotify HiFi, Mr. Man?

The music streaming app tells Bloomberg that 25 percent of subscribers in the US, UK, and Canada are listening to audiobooks — a sign subscribers are taking advantage of Spotify Premium’s free 15 hours of audiobook content.

Spotify also tells Bloomberg that purchases for additional audiobook listening hours have “more than doubled” since the end of last year.

Spotify just announced a new integration with Substack, which will allow Substack creators to distribute free and paywalled podcast episodes on the platform. For listeners, this means they can link their Substack and Spotify accounts. Last year, Spotify made a similar move with Patreon.