Napster

I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since Jasper Donat's annual All That Matters conference in Singapore. It was a fantastic week seeing old friends, making new ones and learning about the latest trends. It was my privilege to speak at the event so I wanted to share my interview conducted by the inimitable Rich Robinson, entrepreneur in residence, Animoca Brands, where I talk about where Napster and the broader music industry is headed in 2025. Hope it sparks some ideas, please lmk any feedback. After all the meetings I have had recently with major labels, indies, artists, managers, startups, venues, magazines, brands and web3 companies, it is clear that we are at a fork in the road for the digital music industry or as Lucian, CEO of UMG, calls it the beginning of "Streaming 2.0". The traditional DSP streaming industry is reaching market saturation in developed markets, the all you can eat, single player, one size fits all model is getting tired (note - there will still be material user growth in developing markets over the coming years). Fans and artists are ready for a new model. something fresh, where fans can connect with each other and artists can connect directly with their fans, express themselves in new creative ways and unlock a plethora of new revenue streams that will allow artists to actually earn a living doing what they love. The other key trend for 2025 will be the emergence of the music curator class who have not been given any real stage time to date and have not benefited economically for all the help they have given us discovering the best music to listen to and music friends to connect with. All the parties that help us find out what to listen to on and offline will become more prominent as they start to monetize and connect their communities. We are closing a new funding round at Napster and are gearing up to launch our new product in 2025 that will introduce social features as well as new direct to fan monetization tools and features. It will look very different to the incumbent offerings. Other peers like SoundCloud and new startups like EVEN, Mellomanic, FanCircles, Medallion are going to give it a go as well. A groundswell is growing and it is feeling more and more inevitable. The power and reach of fans and independent artists is going to help us unleash this second phase of digital, finally making music fun again like Napster did back in the day creating the first phase of digital music and bringing more than 90M people onto the Internet. I am excited and supportive of all the great companies that are building for this new era looking to deliver a more exciting, social and valuable proposition to fans, artists and curators. It's time for change! Let's make it happen together... Kevin Brown Mag Rodriguez Matt Jones Andy Apple Ralph Simon FRSA Eliah Seton #napster #musicindustry #superfans #allthatmatters #asia

Thanks to my good friend Ian Dallimore for having me on his Lamar Advertising Company Digital & Dirt podcast that just went live this week. Really enjoyed chatting about the history of digital music going back to my early days at BMG - The New Music Company and then investing in Napster when I was at Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA when we nearly launched a Napster 2.0 that would have changed the course of digital music as we know it up to running Napster now and our plans for 2024 and beyond. In the next couple of years we are going to see a serious challenger to Spotify come out offering fans and artists a materially different and improved experience. More on that to come. In the meantime, Ian is an excellent interviewer, give it a listen and let us know what you think! Link to listen - https://lnkd.in/griCmec2 #lamar #napster #digitalmusic #podcast #music

Excited to announce the launch of our new AI playlist creation tool - "PlaylistGPT" - making Napster the first DSP to integrate OpenAI's #chatgpt4 and #dalle. We wanted to make it easy for any fan to make a high quality editorial playlist with professional AI generated titles, descriptions and artwork. Instagram turned us all into photographers, hopefully we can help more fans to become music curators sharing music they love with other music fans. Big congrats to the Napster team! This is v1, lots more to come but please give it a test drive and let us know what you think! https://lnkd.in/edfuA-ZG #music #playlists #napster #curation #openai #chatgpt #dalle3

Very excited to announce the launch of our new metaverse experiences for artists on Napster. Today is just the beginning, so many exciting things to come! We are now live with our first artist, the amazingly talented Ric Wilson from Chicago. This was a partnership with the expert team at TerraZero, shout out to Dan Reitzik Brandon F. Johnson and their team for being fantastic partners for this launch. Having built some of the most successful virtual experiences for artists like Lil Nas X, twentyone pilots, David Guetta and many more, I have always wanted to create virtual spaces that ALL artists could have access to, from the smallest indie artists to the biggest superstars. I imagined a 3D immersive space that was templatized but could be customized to the artist's personal style, where they could chat to their fans, release new songs, play their music in a 3D environment, sell digital and physical goods and even perform. Ideally the spaces were free to create so there was no friction and they should be accessible from a browser. This vision is now a reality. We are looking to roll out to more artists over the coming months and Ric will be dropping his new single in his Discoverse hangout next month. Spotify has more than 6K people, we offer basically the same product experience with around 100 people. Napster is going back to our rebellious roots just in time for our 25th anniversary! We are committed to delivering a fresh, new experience for artists and fans that you won't be able to get elsewhere. It is high time for some major innovation, beyond price increases, in the DSP space. Stay tuned for more announcements coming soon and if you are someone who wants to shake things up as a partner or a team mate, please DM me! We are on a mission and need the best of the best! Steven Kokinos Matt Zhang Mike Shuckerow Bill Volpe John Lanyon Matt Turnbull PS - Morgan Tucker Philippe Clavel - it wasn't the same without you and thanks to Dean Takahashi for the write up #napster #metaverse #immersiveexperience #musicindustry #spotify