Our users are connected to their friends

In recent decades, the Kingdom of the Sweden has done a lot for the music. The Group Abba in the 1970s, regarded there as a national pride in the same way as tennis player Björn Borg or filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. The Sweden is also the country natal download The Pirate Bay site, created in the years 2000, and over the years become such a nightmare for the majors of the disc and the cinema public prosecutions that they have incurred resulted last year in the conviction of its leaders to a year in prison farm. Since then, the movement "pirate" has turned into a party political, even since last year a member of the European Parliament! No wonder, therefore, that this country has seen rise also to Spotify. One of the most interesting recent initiatives in the field of music online. The proliferation of actors to have their hole in the new "digital" world of music, Spotify displays ambitions far beyond its original borders. He wants to play in the great court. And why not come and stimulate the star of the industry, the American Apple iTunes download site. "Our dream is to bring together all of the music production world, and make it available to all." On its Internet site, Spotify gives the tone, with a near rhetoric from Google which wants him, make the information accessible to all. "

Established in Stockholm in 2006 by two Swedes, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, Spotify takes its name from "spot" (spot) and "identify" (identify). Everything is said. Model: listening online, without downloading. "Pear to pear" technology it uses, it saves bandwidth, and allows the user to listen to the song chosen without any delay, not even a second, after clicking on a link.

"Freemium".

The initial investment amount: EUR 8 million. Since then, the fundraising move, even if on the side of Spotify, it is absolute silence on the subject. The turnover is not released. The society disseminates some figures with professional lectures by its leaders, and last known relate to the number of subscribers to the model paying (320.000) and on the number of users (7 million). Spotify said recruit ever new subscribers and get advertising. It has no more. Earlier this year, the TechCrunch site valued the company 200 million euros, based on the fundraising took place recently. But music plays not more when addressing the issue of cost-effectiveness. "The problem does not arise again." "We are in the full investment phase", agrees to release Jim Butcher, Director of communication of the group. Spotify is in fact very greedy to cash: in addition to deploying significant teams (90 employees in Stockholm, 30 in London) it develops all its solutions in-house.

Its model What specialists call the "freemium": a part of the site allows to listen to music for free but with advertising, it is the "free". The other option is pay: for the equivalent of 10 euros per month, the Subscriber has access to a music with a sound quality and without advertising, is the "premium". As with many sites, the gratuitpayant debate is more: the model is mixed. In fact, the first is intended to be a basis for the second. The purpose of all operators of music: attract users via an offer free and legal, and transform some of them into paying subscribers. This is the virtuous model intended to establish, for streaming sites, along with the download.

Stockholm, the facilities are brand new - three floors of a beautiful building in the centre of the Swedish capital - and there are all the codes that are ten years the brand name of a worthy of the name start-up: a kitchen per floor, a pool table, a foosball, darts targets and even a bed in a room. "Developers work hard," said one of them. Employees are rather young, mostly male. It is still in the universe of "geeks". At Stockholm, which is based the site of research and development of Spotify, 40 of them are only devoted to this task. Their mission: to continuously update the site, and suggests to the Spotify of tomorrow. Since its launch, society indeed built a comprehensive solution, giving the possibility to its customers - pay - to transfer their music on their mobile phone and listen to it when they are not connected, by plane for example. "This model has invented"off line"", claims Gustav Söderström, Vice-President in charge of all product developments.

Integration with social networks

Another innovation that Spotify is proud: integration with social networks, FaceBook in mind. "Spotify has many elements of a social network." "Facebook and Twitter are the most important contributors of traffic on the Internet for us," said Andres Sehr, in charge of the animation of all the created community around Spotify.

The demonstration is compelling: a click, the Spotify client can discover a title that he enjoyed at his "friends" on Facebook. If the latter are also registered on Spotify, they are immediately notified and only have to click on the link that was sent to them. In marketing, this is called the viral, and it is on this principle that Spotify has built its success. "Social networks provide us three advantages." Our users are connected to their friends. They can get them the music they want. This is what makes the success of Napster in the past; then, this allows to send the music you love, legal way. May send 1,000 songs via a single click. "Finally, they are an eternal source of recommendations between Internet users," says Gustav Söderström.

American ambitions

Unlike a news which is built on the foundations of the pirate site Radioblog and is struggling to rid itself of a slightly sulphurous reputation, the founders of Spotify have developed more than two years to launch a first version of their baby. Time to sign agreements with labels and to perfect a technological interface to make it the most pleasant as possible for the user. Since its launch in Sweden in the fall of 2008, Spotify is going very quickly. Site has spread to the France, Great Britain, the Spain, the Norway and the Finland, and, most recently, the Netherlands. In France, he wants to take advantage of the launch of the "young music map" to increase his notoriety and move up a gear.

Next step: the United States. The launch is scheduled for this year, but on this subject also, the leaders of Spotify are silent or almost. "Can confirm you that it works" is the only response that is meant when the question is asked. The specialist Internet sites speak them already partnered with a giant, type Google, Facebook, or even Microsoft. Competition Announces harsh across the Atlantic: the Cnet site, Google should launch its site of music to the re-entry. For its part, Apple has cleverly waiting on a streaming site, which would complement its iTunes Music Store. Cuppertino group has bought, and then closed, the Lala site, on which the rumor said that he will be based to build its offer in streaming. The size of the US market makes dream Spotify leaders, like the idea of going to rub the local giants.

The latent dream Repeat the same success that Spotify has known in its country of origin. Within its borders, Spotify is a real success, a challenge succeeded while the popularity of The Pirate Bay had played havoc with Swedish users. "For the major record labels, the Sweden was considered a lost country", said Gustav Söderström. Spotify claims two million users in Sweden, or exactly one inhabitant in five. The portfolio of the 320,000 subscribers pay would consist half of Swedish. "It is a reality, Spotify is really popular here," admits Andreas Hultgrin, an activist of the pirate party crossed in the main shopping artery of Stockholm. Success of Spotify and its legal offering or not, the Swedish pirate party continues on its course and militates for the abandonment of the anti-piracy adopted just a year ago by the Swedish Government legislation. After his success in the European elections, the Swedish pirate party already is the next step: be represented in Parliament, in elections next September. "From here in September, we plan to distribute leaflets every Wednesday, perhaps even more often", continues the young man to the look of "geek", a student web design when it weighs not. The Pirate Party today boasts 16,000 members, against over 40,000 a year ago, when its electoral breakthrough. Impossible to say with certainty how many of them have succumbed to the sirens of Spotify. The risk to abandon the struggle.