What Spotify and indeed all these streaming and radio companies failed to do was this: spend million on very cheap high volume commercials till their name became ubiquitous, tell they became Hairclub For Men, till they became not just the President but the client of Spotify.
Many years ago I went to Philadelphia on a TV station trip with Sy Sperling and when I tell you he was treated like a rock star I might not just not any rock star either: not Colin Blunstone but Keith Richards. This was in the mid-1990s and Hairclub For men parodies were appearing on SNL and the Tonight Show. And for $10 Million bucks a year, you wouldn’t have been able to turn on your TV without hearing about Spotify.
Well, I guess it doesn’t matter because a misplaced ad (if it was misplaced, wheels within wheels here) looking for an “U.S. financial reporting specialist” suggest the Swedish streaming are headed for their Initial Public Offering despite never having made a dime, indeed, losing money hand over fist. Will they be profitable? Probably. But they aren’t yet.
The consensus is that there will be one man standing at the end of the day for music streaming, and I would tend to think it is tough to beat Spotify right now, but tough is not impossible and if Apple ever gets its act together and figures someway to introduce streaming without eating their young, Spotify will be toast. And that’s despite Spotify having a much better interface.
So now they will go to IPO and are expected to raise $8 Billion and Daniel Ek is worth more than Mick Jagger!
