Spotify Teardown

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

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

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

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

Streaming Music

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

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.

Are Filter Bubbles Real?

Author: Axel Bruns
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509536469
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 87

Book Description
There has been much concern over the impact of partisan echo chambers and filter bubbles on public debate. Is this concern justified, or is it distracting us from more serious issues? Axel Bruns argues that the influence of echo chambers and filter bubbles has been severely overstated, and results from a broader moral panic about the role of online and social media in society. Our focus on these concepts, and the widespread tendency to blame platforms and their algorithms for political disruptions, obscure far more serious issues pertaining to the rise of populism and hyperpolarisation in democracies. Evaluating the evidence for and against echo chambers and filter bubbles, Bruns offers a persuasive argument for why we should shift our focus to more important problems. This timely book is essential reading for students and scholars, as well as anyone concerned about challenges to public debate and the democratic process.

Contest of Queens

Author: Jordan H. Bartlett
Publisher: CamCat Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 0744304652
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 423

Book Description
In a Queendom divided, can one girl unite the realms? Jacs, an inventor’s apprentice from the Lower Realm, has only ever dreamed of what the land among the clouds holds. That is until she finds a letter from Connor, an Upperite boy hoping to learn more about the land below. Little does Jacs know, Connor is actually Prince Cornelius of the Queendom of Frea. With wooden boats and hot air balloons, the two begin a secret correspondence. But their friendship is divided by a heavily-guarded bridge and an inescapable prejudice. The strength of their bond was thought to transcend distance and time, but when the royal family visits the Lower Realm, the Queendom’s feud is reignited. To save her people, Jacs must infiltrate the Upper Realm and earn her place to compete in the Contest of Queens. In a story about friendship, love, bravery, and defying gravity, Jacs will strive to prove that a Queendom is strongest when united.

Appetite for Self-Destruction

Author: Steve Knopper
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1593762690
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the modern recording industry, from an author who has been writing about it for more than ten years. With unparalleled access to those intimately involved in the music world’s highs and lows—including Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr., renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning, and more than 200 others—Steve 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, the explosion of CD sales, and the emergence of MP3-sharing websites 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. Just as the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world, the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees, and Knopper saw it all.

A Ghost's Memoir

Author: John McDonald
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262632850
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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.

Clique Bait

Author: Ann Valett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062918109
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
Pretty Little Liars meets Burn for Burn in this thrilling debut from Wattpad star Ann Valett. Chloe Whittaker is out for revenge. Last year her best friend Monica’s life was unceremoniously ruined by the most popular students at their high school, so this year Chloe plans to take each and every one of them down. She’s traded in her jeans and T-shirts for the latest designer clothes, erased anything on social media that would tie her to Monica (and blow her cover), and carefully figured out how she will befriend the members of the clique, find out their deepest and darkest secrets, and reveal them to the world. Chloe has the perfect plan . . . but there’s one thing she didn’t prepare for. And that’s falling for someone she’s determined to destroy. The closer she gets to uncovering the secrets the in-crowd is determined to cover up, the more she realizes that she is going to have to choose between betraying her oldest friend or the boy who’s captured her heart

Tarzan Economics

Author:
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316427381
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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.

Red, White & Royal Blue

Author: Casey McQuiston
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250316782
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
* Instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller * * GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 * * BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR* for VOGUE, NPR, VANITY FAIR, and more! * What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales? When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic. "I took this with me wherever I went and stole every second I had to read! Absorbing, hilarious, tender, sexy—this book had everything I crave. I’m jealous of all the readers out there who still get to experience Red, White & Royal Blue for the first time!" - Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners "Red, White & Royal Blue is outrageously fun. It is romantic, sexy, witty, and thrilling. I loved every second." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six