Apple And The Future Of Streaming

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Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 5 to 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

  • Taylor Swift is trying to stand up for artists to be paid. Apple decided to offer it’s new streaming service to everyone for free for the first three months. In doing so, it’s also forcing the artists to not get paid during those three months. Might this be the streaming audio service of the future? Can it crush Spotify? Can it crush Rdio? Only time will tell, but Taylor Swift is holding back her latest album, 1989, unless Apple changes this rule. Apple has a lot of money. It can still pay artists while this promotion runs. So, who’s right? Taylor Swift? Apple? Well, it didn’t take long to find out. Swift posted on Saturday and Apple agreed to pay the artist on Sunday.
  • When was the last time you ran out and bought a magazine? The cover story from the latest edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek is called, What Is Code? by Paul Ford. Well, the truth is that it’s not just a cover story… it’s the whole magazine. Close to 40,000 words long. That’s like a book. Why did they do it? Code is important. It’s the architecture of the Web. Our kids in school should be forced to learn to code, if they’re going to be forced to learn other languages like English, French and math (yes, I believe math – like music – is a language). This article about code is an important read… for all of us.
  • App of the week: Kite.

Listen here…