Spotify - A real music model brought to you by advertising

While most people in the U.S. might not have heard of Spotify before, it is and has been hailed as a workable business model that both music companies and the music fan have been able to embrace.
Spotify recently gained attention throughout Europe and many parts of the world (where Spotify is available, which means mostly Europe) for U2 choosing them as an official partner to help release their new album. There business model for the most part has been widely accepted by the music industry in all of the countries that they are available, but for some reason not the U.S., which based on their fast growth and enthusiastic arrival might change soon. Some people feel that it is the best music app on the planet, and now with the release of the libspotify platform where developers can now make their app that much better, the sky is the limit. Right now, Spotify provides music to the listener for free by inserting a short 20 second advertisement every 30 min. of free music, which for the most part is not that much, and has been widely accepted as alright by the user. They also have a subscription if for some reason the short ad is too much, but with their very large collection of music, the easy user interface, etc... it is the opinion of the majority that it works just fine.

International Digital Content at MIP TV

The annual TV conference in Cannes usually draws people form the TV business internationally, this year, as well for the past few years digital has taken a stronger presence at one of the best TV markets in the world.
Digital's presence could be seen from the caliber of the trade show booth showcasing new technologies and innovations from Yahoo on their new widget channel, to Zillion TV, to Discovery Channel, Comcast, et al... and the list goes on. The market included great keynote's from the advertising, TV, feature, and digital technology world on the future of content and the screens that we will be watching on, and the future revenue models of the future.

Each country had a contingent of distributors and channel's selling content, with events designed to showcase new TV formats and programs, as well as digital focused projects. Being it was my first time attending MIP, and that MIP has always been an international TV market, I was very impressed and surprised to see the new and flourishing markets, especially in digital, coming out of the middle-east and Africa.

While many people stated that MIP attendance was down, the deals were still strong with lots of new revenue platforms presenting themselves for next and new platforms and markets that are becoming the key revenue generators for the years to come.