#AND that spotify stops recording data in october

[radio-4-is-static]

RADWIMPS top artist 5 years in a row let's go !

[bananayoshimoto]

why is the goodreads wrapped out already i am not looking at it i am not done reading for the year yet

[heshomeoflwt]

You always post and applaud Harry's stats but despize Louis for wanting more recognition? Typical larries. Always shitting on Louis for not being in the top 40 and s*ck Harry's *** * for being the very top of top 40. As long as it is ONLY Harry it gets larries support. Louis is the designated doormat for talking about Freddie right?

you know what’s funny? you sitting in my inbox typing that. why waste your time? lol.

if you actually took the time to scroll through my blog, (because you clearly didn’t) you’d see that i post and applaud louis and his achievements just as much. and i’ve never once shat on him for not being in the top 40?? where’d you pull that from? also, typical larries? look at you, an insufferable person with biased opinions. i swear, all you miserable people do is find someone you disagree with, then find ways to dump on them and their character and all you have to try and back up your nonsensical points, is well, you guessed it! nothing! i don’t wish to spend my time the way you do, and i’m glad i don’t. it’s not healthy and doesn’t put anybody in a good mindset. i curate the space i’m in, and i don’t go out of my way to try swing on people. it’s a much more pleasant experience, promise. i’d love for louis to be just as big as harry, i would. but he’s not, and that’s of no fault of his own. and just to be clear, and i am more of a louis fan, thanks for asking. he was my top artist this year, same as the year before. top 000.01% of listeners, spending 148,269 minutes with him! (harry trailed behind him, not sure by how much) and this isn’t counting the amount i’ve been streaming him since spotify stopped collecting its data for the ‘22 wrapped at the end of october. as for the kid, if that’s what you think i believe, wrong! i don’t know what’s up with that, and why louis has been mentioning him. now, this is slightly unrelated, but still related in a sense- but i do think the kid is partially why some fans are turned off louis, and of listening to the new record, and prior music, because it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. we don’t know all of what goes on, and why it goes on, so for whatever anyone’s reason is for not being all that involved or supportive of louis, is their business, not mine; and this goes back to curating a space that they enjoy, and can handle. the fact of the matter is that louis is not getting the recognition and radio play he deserves; not because of us, the fans, but because of TPTB, because of everything sony did to screw louis over, and the list continues, i could go on and on. would i love it if louis never had to talk about the kid again, yes, yes i would. i’d love it if they ended it, and louis was a free man, but he’s not. and i think he’s made his peace with that. could i be wrong with my speculations? yes, absolutely. but no one really knows anything, we are all assessing the information and impact as it comes.

TLDR; louis is a spectacular musician, and i’d be over the moon if people realized that and payed him more attention. have the day that you deserve, anon.

[daffodiline]

kinda fucked up spotify wrapped stops recording data after october 31

[gobbluthbutagirl]

yeah i probably used spotify like an hour total this year prior to may when i finally upgraded to premium. and considering they stop recording data at the end of october or whenever that is NOT even a full year. that’s five months. i didn’t listen to 8.7k minutes of music in 12 months. i listened to it in 5. i’m normal i’m normal i’m normal i’m n

[bitchmix]

I have a theory about Spotify wrapped and I have no one to share it looks so I’m sharing it here but hear me out Spotify rapt is a scam and it only takes your data from like one month and I have proof so you know how they stop recording data after October 31 well I read they do it so your Spotify wrap doesn’t get filled with holiday music which means that you could be listening to music for the whole entire year but one month of holiday music and that’s all that’s going to show up and not only that but I had a friend this was like two years ago he was in a musical at the beginning of the year so he was listening to a lot of the songs from the soundtrack but that was for maybe like a month and then he discovered another artist which became his obsession but that didn’t show up on his warped which just proves that it only takes data from a month because why else would they stop before people are listening to Christmas music if that one month didn’t have such a big  affect 

This is so random but okay

[gary--martin]

The beginning of the major project story

In October 2020 I began putting ideas together for a project. Something that I wanted to last, become part of my life on a longterm basis; something I cared about. At the time of writing this (January 2021), I cannot for the life of me remember what those initial ideas were. I had spent the summer reading and reflecting on my creative practice. The pandemic was going on way longer than I thought it would have and it had started to expose a lot of things for me that were just hiding from plain sight. I had many conversations with friends (Squad) over Zoom and ‘the group chat’ about internet cultures and the impact URL life is having on IRL life. Generally speaking we were finding the divide between the internet that we love, and the internet that was pissing us off, and trying to find out why we were getting so miffed about certain things. We had been talking a lot about Spotify, about how we didn’t like the network effect it had over musicians to release music on there despite the remuneration system seeming so unfair. I use Spotify to listen to a lot of music, so there’s definitely some cognitive dissonance going on there. I get that it’s convenient for listeners. And I also get that getting your track in a popular playlist can get you loads of streams (and so maybe earn a bit of money). But as a group we reflected on the namelessness of this system. How easy it was to leave playlist running and not know who or what you are listening to even if asked. "Ah its on this playlist" was a phrase we discussed a fair bit. You might argue that this system allows for greater music exploration, finding things you’ve never heard before. And you’d be right. But radio does this and I have no gripes with radio. What’s all that about? Artist and Computer Person, Elliott Cost wrote a short paper on the vastness of a website. In it he talks about how over the last few years… "platforms have stripped away any hint of how vast they actually are. As a result, users only get to see a tiny sliver of an entire platform. There’s been an overwhelming push to build tools specifically designed for engagement (like buttons, emoji responses, comment threading) instead of building tools that help users actually explore. This has replaced any sense of play with a bleak struggle for users attention. The marketing line for these new tools could easily be, "engage more, explore less."" He tries to combat this in the websites he designs by adding explore buttons that randomise content, for example. You can see this in action in a website he contributed to called the The Creative Independent. "One thing we did implement was a random button that served up a random interview from over 600 articles across the site. I ended up moving this button into the main navigation so that readers could continue to click the button until they found an interview that interested them. It’s fairly easy to implement a “randomized items/articles” section on a website. In the case of The Creative Independent, this simple addition revealed how expansive the site really was.”

https://elliott.computer/pages/exploring-the-vastness-of-a-website.html  Sticking with the website theme, another thing we discussed as a Squad was the increase of Web 3.0 models in comparison to out current 2.0 models. We’d all done some listening to and reading of Jaron Lanier, who after writing a few books about the future of big data and the potential to monetise your own, eventually just wrote a really on those nose book about getting off social media. It’s called ‘Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now’. To the point right? After feeling the negative effects of social media throughout 2018 and 2019, I’d reached breaking point, and this book tipped me over the edge to try going cold turkey. It was surprisingly easy and I loved being away from it all, especially Instagram. That app can do things to you. For quite some time I was obsessed over crafting the perfect post for my music and creative practice that I stopped making my core content to focus on keeping up appearances on Instagram. I don’t think it works like this for everyone. Perhaps some people are more susceptible to the allure of its powers. Maybe it rooted in some insecurities. Either way, the network of people I was following and that were following me back were certainly not social. Our relationships were built on tokenistic and obligatory likes and comments. The FOMO was hitting hard and I wasn’t getting anywhere with my art and music. I’m still off Instagram, all Facebook platforms in fact. I got rid of WhatsApp and forced my friends to use Signal. Cos that’s what you do to people you love, shine a light down on anything toxic in their life while sitting on that high horse. I have returned to Twitter, months and months after being away from everything, because I’m trying to start a record label during a pandemic. You can’t meet up with anyone or go anywhere, how am I supposed to do guerrilla marketing if everyone is staring at their computer at home everyday? I could’ve come up with something online perhaps, and perhaps I might still. But for know I’ve jumped on Twitter and am just following everyone in Cardiff involved with music. I’m playing the spam game until we can go outside again. Then I’ll delete that little blue bird from my computer again. I appreciate that these networks are useful and convenient. And there aren’t any good alternative with the same network effect. But the thing that Lanier said that really struck me was this idea that there needs to be enough people on the outside of it all to show others that it can be done. So until something better comes along, I am happy to sit outside of it all. Jenny Odell is helping me through this with her book “How to Do Nothing.” As we discussed this as a Squad we noticed that much of what we were talking about was about aligning your actions with your values. It’s something seemingly impossible to maintain in all aspects of your life, but I genuinely think the more you can do this the happier you’ll be. We do it in so many other aspects of our lives, I wondered why it was so difficult to musicians who hate Spotify to not use, or for those riddled with anxiety to not use Instagram. I think a huge factor of this is down to that word convenience again. Now, convenience is king. But, “At what cost?” I will ask. For every few seconds shaved off, kj of energy saved, or steps reduced in completing a task or getting something, there are hidden costs elsewhere that the consumer doesn’t have to worry about. And I think this is worrying. Not that I think things should be deliberately inconvenient for people. But on reflecting on this, I am happy for things to be a little ‘anti-convenient’. For processes of consumption and creation, to have that extra step I do myself perhaps, or for it to take that little bit longer for a package to get to me. Or even that I spend some time learning how to do whole processes myself. Anyway, back to those Web3 chats…. the Squad noticed that the new Web seems to include glimmers of Web 1.0 and the return of personal websites, as well as newer ideas like decentralised systems of exchange. Artists that can do a bit of coding and seasoned web designers alike are creating an online culture that focuses on liberating the website and our online presence from platform capitalism. Instructions for how to set up your own social network (https://runyourown.social) are readily available with a quick search, and calls for a community focused web are common place from those dying to get off Twitter and live in their own corner of the internet with their Squad, interconnected with other Squads. What’s this got to do with Third Nature? Well it means I decided to build our website from scratch using simple HTML and CSS. I intend to maintain this and eventually try to move the hosting from GitHub Pages over to a personal server ran on a Raspberry Pi. There is a link between the anti-Spotify movement and the pro-DIY-website culture, which is that ‘aligning your actions with your values’ thing. Before Third Nature had a website though - before it was called Third Nature for that matter - I had this idea… What if there were an alternative to Spotify that was as fair as the #BrokenRecord campaign wanted it to be? I could so have a go at making that. Maybe on a small scale. Like for Cardiff, and then expand. After sharing the idea with the Squad though we did some research and actually came across a few music platforms that were doing these types of things. More on this in the next post…

[usashirtstoday]

Ew People Mask Pig Cow Chicken Coronavirus T Shirt

I want to give a Pretty The Bryzzo Show Mic’d Up And Mashing shirt sweater shout out to the honest company back in february I ordered their prenatal vitamins I didn’t receive them and eventually looked through my emails they had been sent to my old house address assuming I forgot to update my address on file I figured it was my loss after awhile I recalled having a delivery to my current address here it is nearly may and I finally called the honest company it turns out that I had added my current address but somehow it was not set as default customer service made the address change for me and is sending me the prenatals I ordered back in february anytime I have called for help with an order the honest company has gone above and beyond to help me and btw the organic breathe easy rub has been a miracle for my baby’s chest congestion. Spoiler alert we turned the official springsteen on broadway setlist into spotify and apple music playlists. Vivisection vivisection is unethical barbaric fallacious and fraudulent physiological differences mean that data from experiments on animals is not applicable to humans as evidenced by the thousands of drugs that have proved dangerous even lethally so in humans after testing as safe in animals egs thalidomide clioquinol diethylstilbestrol cyler opren vioxx and tgn furthermore artificially inflicted disease in animals is very different from spontaneously occurring disease in humans caused by pollution pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines pesticides and poor unnatural unhealthy meat egg and dairy based diets which cause obesity heart disease stroke diabetes arthritis and cancer www nzavs org nz www pcrm org the physicians’ committee for responsible medicine www dlrm org doctors and lawyers for responsible medicine www safernedicines org www hsi org 3 d cancer model reveals novel drug targets stop vivisection and the european parliament drs ray greek and andre menache testify at the eu parliament may 11th dr ray greek talk radio europe 30th october 2015 dr ray greek 1st october 2016 stop vivisection and the european parliament enough pink now let s get serious wed 2015 11 04 17 19 wyss institute human lung on a chip the scientific case against the use of animals in biomedical research the scientific case against the use of animals in biomedical research published by animal aid and written especially for members of the uk based association of medical research charities amrc file e amrcreport 20against 20vivisection pdf genomic responses in mouse models poorly mimic human inflammatory diseases org news news 2014 05 new zealand drugs animal tests 050614 html pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are produced in and tested on animals help stop vivisection boycott pharmaceutical drugs vaccines petrochemicals pesticides fertilisers cosmetics and animal products all of which can be tested on animals and produced using vivisection herbal medicine has a history of thousands of years of safe efficacious use until the villification persecution and murder of witches who practised herbal medicine and midwifery instigated by the allopaths to take away from people the means to heal themselves and make them reliant on allopathic medicine which at best only masks the symptoms of disease and fails to treat the underlying causes or the whole person use herbal medicine allopathic medicine merely masks the symptoms of disease and 50 95 of pharmaceutical drugs are excreted unchanged thus poisoning and polluting the environment read the lost language of plants by stephen harrod buhner vaccine dangers whale to 1 2 vaccines cause food allergies pharmaceutical pollution read the lost language of plant the ecological importance of plant medicines for life on earth by stephen harod buhner genetic de engineering most vivisection in nz is inflicted on animals who are genetically de engineered to alter the composition of their milk in cows doomed to the dairy industry or to alter their physiology for heart transplant research eg pigs genetically de engineered in xeno transplantation experiments for heart valve transplants elsewhere hearts are cut from pigs thus killing them and transplanted into primates macaque monkeys thus healthy animals are horribly tortured and killed to research practise heart transplants for humans who have not looked after their own hearts boycott pharmaceutical drugs vaccines and medical procedures go vegan go herbal go organic go natural save the planet peta feral 021 059 5415 peta feral 021 059 5415

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I signed a Pretty The Bryzzo Show Mic’d Up And Mashing shirt sweater record deal in the uk with ministry of sound today don’t worry this is a good thing I will finally have the money and resources to do exactly what I have wanted to do since I started making music i’ve not ‘sold out’ or anything like that i’m not changing I love and appreciate you guys my fans friends please stick with me this has grown from a hobby into something else only because of you guys. Is tidal navy blue or the dino print because on the snow pants it shows the navy blue as tidal but literally everything else is showing as the dinosaurs. Kkw beauty is launching blushes for the first time and I m so excited for you to try the buildable formulas and the colors are so dreamy tomorrow 9 14 at 12pm pst go to kkwbeauty com to purchase See Other related products: The Bryzzo Show

[highonbits]

Top 5 most wicked cyberattacks ever!

Plagues, secret activities, pulverization: We present the most vital cyberattacks of ongoing years.

Most cyberattacks are genuinely every day. In the most pessimistic scenarios, the client sees an on-screen emancipate request clarifying that the PC is encoded and can be opened after installment. Generally, be that as it may, nothing noticeable occurs by any means — numerous sorts of malware go about as clandestinely as conceivable to augment information burglary before being spotted.

In any case, with some cyberattacks, their scale or refinement can’t neglect to stand out. This post is committed to the five generally staggering and infamous cyberattacks of the most recent decade.

Mirai: The fall of the Internet

Botnets had been around for a very long time as of now, yet the development of the Internet of Things truly inhaled new life into them. Gadgets whose security had never been thought of and for which no antiviruses existed out of nowhere started to be contaminated for a huge scope. These gadgets at that point found others of a similar kind and speedily passed on the virus. This zombie task force, based on a bit of malware impractically named Mirai (interpreted from Japanese as “future”), developed and developed, at the same time hanging tight for directions.

At that point, one day — October 21, 2016 — the proprietors of this monster botnet chose to test its abilities by causing its a great many computerized video recorders, switches, IP cameras, and other “keen” hardware to flood the DNS specialist co-op Dyn with demands.

Dyn essentially couldn’t withstand such a monstrous DDoS assault. The DNS, just as administrations that depended on it, got inaccessible: PayPal, Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, PlayStation online administrations, and numerous others in the US were influenced. Dyn in the end recuperated, however the sheer size of the Mirai assault caused the world to sit up and consider the security of “savvy” things — it was the mother of all wake-up calls.

Stuxnet: A smoking cybergun

Presumably, the most renowned assault was the intricate, multifaceted malware that impaired uranium-advancement axes in Iran, hindering the nation’s atomic program for quite a while. It was Stuxnet that originally provoked discussion of the utilization of cyberweapons against mechanical frameworks.

In those days, nothing could coordinate Stuxnet for multifaceted nature or clever — the worm had the option to spread impalpably through USB streak drives, entering even PCs that were not associated with the Internet or a neighborhood organization.

The worm spun wild and immediately multiplied the world over, contaminating countless PCs. However, it couldn’t harm those PCs; it had been made for an unmistakable undertaking. The worm showed itself just on PCs worked by Siemens programmable controllers and programming. On arriving on such a machine, it reconstructed these controllers. At that point, by setting the rotational speed of the uranium-advancement rotators excessively high, it truly wrecked them.

A great deal of ink has been overflowed Stuxnet, including an entire book, yet for a general comprehension of how the worm spread and what it contaminated, this post should get the job done.

WannaCry: A genuine pandemic

The WannaCry assault put ransomware, and PC malware by and large, on everybody’s guide, even the individuals who don’t have the foggiest idea about a byte from a chomp. Utilizing misuses from the Equation Group hacking group that were made freely accessible by the Shadow Brokers, the aggressors made an enormity — a ransomware encryptor ready to spread rapidly over the Internet and neighborhood systems.

The four-day WannaCry pandemic took out in excess of 200,000 PCs in 150 nations. This included basic foundation: In certain emergency clinics, WannaCry scrambled all gadgets, including clinical gear, and a few processing plants had to stop creation. Among ongoing assaults, WannaCry is the most expansive.

See here for additional insights regarding WannaCry, and here and here for business parts of the scourge. Unexpectedly, WannaCry is still out there, imperiling the world’s PCs.

DarkHotel: Spies in suite rooms

It’s an obvious fact that open Wi-Fi organizes in bistros or air terminals are not the most secure. However many accept that in lodgings things ought to be better. Regardless of whether a lodging’s system is open, probably an approval is required.

Such confusion has cost different top supervisors and high-positioning authorities profoundly. On associating with an inn organize, they were provoked to introduce an apparently real update for a well-known bit of programming, and promptly their gadgets were contaminated with the DarkHotel spyware, which the aggressors explicitly brought into the system a couple of days before their appearance and expelled a couple of days after. The stealthy spyware logged keystrokes and permitted the cybercriminals to direct focused on phishing assaults.

NotPetya/ExPetr: The costliest cyberattack to date

So, the title of most exorbitant plague doesn’t go to WannaCry, but instead to another ransomware encryptor (in fact a wiper, yet that doesn’t adjust the main concern) called ExPetr, otherwise called NotPetya. Its working guideline was the equivalent: Using EternalBlue and EtrernalRomance abuses, the worm moved around the Web, irreversibly scrambling everything in its way.

In spite of the fact that it was little as far as to complete a number of contaminated machines, the NotPetya pandemic focused on for the most part organizations, somewhat in light of the fact that one of the underlying proliferation vectors was through the money related programming MeDoc. The cybercriminals figured out how to deal with the MeDoc update server, causing numerous customers to utilize the product to get the malware masked as an update, which at that point spread over the system.

The harm from the NotPetya cyberattack is evaluated at $10 billion, while WannaCry, as indicated by different appraisals, lies in the $4–$8 billion territory. NotPetya is considered the costliest worldwide cyberattack ever. Fingers crossed that if this record has been broken, it won’t be soon.

More data about the NotPetya/ExPetr pandemic can be found right now; torment it caused organizations are inspected here; and see here for why the scourge, fit for crippling huge organizations, influences those whose PCs are contaminated, yet every other person too.

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[magzoso-tech]

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/facebook-gives-users-some-control-over-how-they-see-political-ads-ahead-of-us-elections/

Facebook Gives Users Some Control Over How They See Political Ads Ahead of US Elections

Facebook said on Thursday it was making some changes to its approach to political ads, including allowing users to turn off certain ad-targeting tools, but the updates stop far short of critics’ demands and what rival companies have pledged to do.

The world’s biggest social network has vowed to curb political manipulation of its platform, after failing to counter alleged Russian interference and the misuse of user data by defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica in 2016.

But ahead of the US presidential election in November 2020, Facebook is struggling to quell criticism of its relatively hands-off ads policies. In particular it has come under fire after it exempted politicians’ ads from fact-checking standards applied to other content on its network.

Facebook said that in addition to rolling out a tool enabling individual users to choose to see fewer political and social issue ads on Facebook and its photo-sharing app Instagram, it will also make more ad audience data publicly available.

In contrast, Twitter banned political ads in October, while Alphabet’s Google said it would stop letting advertisers target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations.

Other online platforms like Spotify, Pinterest, and TikTok have also issued bans.

In a blog post, Facebook’s director of product management Rob Leathern said the company considered imposing limits like Google’s, but decided against them as internal data indicated most ads run by US presidential candidates are broadly targeted, at audiences larger than 250,000 people.

“We have based (our policies) on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all,” Leathern wrote.

The expanded ad audience data features will be rolled out in the first quarter of this year and Facebook plans to deploy the political ads control starting in the United States early this summer, eventually expanding this preference to more locations.

Custom audiences Another change will be to allow users to choose to stop seeing ads based on an advertiser’s “Custom Audience” and that will apply to all types of advertising, not only political ads.

The “Custom Audiences” feature lets advertisers upload lists of personal data they maintain, like email addresses and phone numbers. Facebook then matches that information to user accounts and shows the advertiser’s content to those people.

However, Facebook will not give users a blanket option to turn off the feature, meaning they will have to opt out of seeing ads for each advertiser one by one, a spokesman told Reuters.

The change will also not affect ad targeting via Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences tool, which uses the same uploads of personal data to direct ads at people with similar characteristics to those on the lists, the spokesman said.

Leathern said in the post the company would make new information publicly available about the audience size of political ads in the company’s Ad Library, showing approximately how many people the advertisers aimed to reach.

The changes follow a New York Times report this week of an internal memo by senior Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth, who told employees the company had a duty not to tilt the scales against US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

Bosworth, a close confidant of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg who subsequently made his post public, wrote that he believed Facebook was responsible for Trump’s election in 2016, but not because of misinformation or Trump’s work with Cambridge Analytica.

Rather, he said, the Trump campaign used Facebook’s advertising tools most effectively.

© Thomson Reuters 2019

[immuskaan]

Why using the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus makes me feel so incredibly guilty

I have to admit something: I don’t really know how to use the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus.

I’m not an elite runner by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don’t think that I could be classed as a novice. I’ll look at the ‘advanced’ section of any running plan first, and I’ll always look at joining the fastest group session at my running club (before, often, chickening out). I’ve run multiple marathons and half marathons and so many 10k races that I’ve actually lost count. I say this not to brag (liar - Ed), but just to prove that I’m not a novice runner. I'm one that has pushed myself to the limit many times and always has a watch strapped to my wrist to make sure I’m recording all that sweet, sweet data.

These are the best Garmin running watches

Or you could try our best-running watches overall

How about some great headphones for running while you're at it?

You see, I am a data-hungry fool. I’m certainly at the point where I’ve saturated myself too hard in all the little bits and pieces that you can learn from popping wearable tech all around your body, but man alive… I love it. I love knowing that my cadence was higher on that Saturday at that Parkrun compared to the training session I did later in the week, and it brought a certain speed level improvement. I adore being able to do a training run and then see that 18 months ago I was around 30 seconds per mile faster with only a 5% increase in heart rate. I used to talk about this kind of things at parties, but then people stopped inviting me to parties. I assume that’s just because I’m getting older. Is there such a thing as too much data? OK, I know it’s really boring, and that’s usually why I keep my fascination with data to myself. But when the chance to have a watch, like the Fenix 5 Plus, that can tell you pretty much everything about everything that happens when you run comes along, surely that should be my absolute zenith, a runner’s version of catnip? .

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So I thought when strapping it on, the idea of being able to track nearly everything seemed like a dizzying high. I should have known something was up though when I balked at the thought of the Fenix 5X Plus, which packs a pulse oximeter to tell me how much oxygen is in my blood.

On a barge holiday. Need to make up 15 miles in 6 hours. ‘How am I going to track that...?’ I wonder. Then I remember I’ve only flippin’ BOAT MODE on the @Garmin Fenix 5 Plus. Game time. 🚤 pic.twitter.com/YE4KNNgw8m

— Gareth Beavis (@superbeav) October 5, 2018

I didn’t feel like I needed it. I should have recognized right then that I was reaching saturation point in terms of being told everything that's going on in my body when running. Now, after a few months of wearing the Fenix 5 Plus and training for a marathon with it on my wrist, I’m feeling increasingly guilty about it. There are modes and settings on it that I’m never going to use, and this watch is never going to realize its true potential.

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I’ll never throw myself out of a plane to test out ‘Jumpmaster’ (essentially parachuting that uses the altimeter to see how far and fast you’re falling). I’m never going to connect it to cameras and bike lights and turbo trainers to really take my cycling to the next level. I’m never going to climb, paddleboard or use ‘Tactical’, mostly because I’m afraid of what that really is. I just want to jog around with it. I did use boat mode when on a barge recently, although I was quite lost over the difference between knots and miles per hours - that said, it was awesome to have a speedometer on my wrist and really helped us chug through six hours to make it back to the dock in time. See Gareth Beavis's other Tweets Also, as it’s so packed with sensors and designed to be used for so many sports, it’s a chunky beast as well - there’s definitely some weight and size to overcome when choosing one from the Fenix range. Why can't I quit you? There are reasons that I still run around with it strapped to my wrist though. Firstly, it’s got the entire suite of run tracking that I actually use. I can program in interval sessions from my app. I can customize the screen to show only the metrics I care about. It’ll tell me how tired I am from reading the variations in my heart rate, and even has a tiny map that I can sort of read when I’m trying to work out where I am. However, (map aside, and I don’t really need that) these are all things that I could get on the Garmin Forerunner 935, which is a lot sleeker and cheaper (the Fenix 5 Plus comes in at £550 / $700 / AU$1000, where the 935 can be found for around two thirds of that price). If you're interested, we have sniffed out the best Garmin deals on many different watches from the range. The one thing that keeps me locked to the Fenix 5 Plus is down to one simple fact: it’s got Spotify on board, meaning I can sync my playlists and podcasts to the watch and leave my phone fully at home. This is functionality that is sadly not widespread enough through the fitness watch industry and is still pretty new on Garmin too, locked to only the Forerunner 645 Music and the Fenix 5 range (and I’m still not desperate to buy the 645 Music after the poor battery life performance in my review). So, for now, I’m sticking with the Fenix 5 Plus - but I get the feeling that in 2019 we’re going to see more Spotify-enabled running watches hit the market from Garmin, complete with all the running data I crave but without the guilt of holding back something better suited to the wrist of an Iron Man contender. .

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Gareth Beavis is TechRadar's, Running Man of Tech, testing the latest in fitness technology in a never-ending quest to run further and faster and bringing you the results in this column.

If you want to say hi, he's @superbeav on Twitter

You can see his stumblings on Strava

And for more data, follow him on Smashrun

And if you want to get the full lowdown on the latest and greatest running tech, read the rest of the Running Man of Tech story here

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I have to admit something: I don’t really know how to use the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus.

I’m not an elite runner by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don’t think that I could be classed as a novice. I’ll look at the ‘advanced’ section of any running plan first, and I’ll always look at joining the fastest group session at my running club (before, often, chickening out). I’ve run multiple marathons and half marathons and so many 10k races that I’ve actually lost count. I say this not to brag (liar - Ed), but just to prove that I’m not a novice runner. I'm one that has pushed myself to the limit many times and always has a watch strapped to my wrist to make sure I’m recording all that sweet, sweet data.

These are the best Garmin running watches

Or you could try our best-running watches overall

How about some great headphones for running while you're at it?

You see, I am a data-hungry fool. I’m certainly at the point where I’ve saturated myself too hard in all the little bits and pieces that you can learn from popping wearable tech all around your body, but man alive… I love it. I love knowing that my cadence was higher on that Saturday at that Parkrun compared to the training session I did later in the week, and it brought a certain speed level improvement. I adore being able to do a training run and then see that 18 months ago I was around 30 seconds per mile faster with only a 5% increase in heart rate. I used to talk about this kind of things at parties, but then people stopped inviting me to parties. I assume that’s just because I’m getting older. Is there such a thing as too much data? OK, I know it’s really boring, and that’s usually why I keep my fascination with data to myself. But when the chance to have a watch, like the Fenix 5 Plus, that can tell you pretty much everything about everything that happens when you run comes along, surely that should be my absolute zenith, a runner’s version of catnip? .

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So I thought when strapping it on, the idea of being able to track nearly everything seemed like a dizzying high. I should have known something was up though when I balked at the thought of the Fenix 5X Plus, which packs a pulse oximeter to tell me how much oxygen is in my blood.

On a barge holiday. Need to make up 15 miles in 6 hours. ‘How am I going to track that...?’ I wonder. Then I remember I’ve only flippin’ BOAT MODE on the @Garmin Fenix 5 Plus. Game time. 🚤 pic.twitter.com/YE4KNNgw8m

— Gareth Beavis (@superbeav) October 5, 2018

I didn’t feel like I needed it. I should have recognized right then that I was reaching saturation point in terms of being told everything that's going on in my body when running. Now, after a few months of wearing the Fenix 5 Plus and training for a marathon with it on my wrist, I’m feeling increasingly guilty about it. There are modes and settings on it that I’m never going to use, and this watch is never going to realize its true potential.

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I’ll never throw myself out of a plane to test out ‘Jumpmaster’ (essentially parachuting that uses the altimeter to see how far and fast you’re falling). I’m never going to connect it to cameras and bike lights and turbo trainers to really take my cycling to the next level. I’m never going to climb, paddleboard or use ‘Tactical’, mostly because I’m afraid of what that really is. I just want to jog around with it. I did use boat mode when on a barge recently, although I was quite lost over the difference between knots and miles per hours - that said, it was awesome to have a speedometer on my wrist and really helped us chug through six hours to make it back to the dock in time. See Gareth Beavis's other Tweets Also, as it’s so packed with sensors and designed to be used for so many sports, it’s a chunky beast as well - there’s definitely some weight and size to overcome when choosing one from the Fenix range. Why can't I quit you? There are reasons that I still run around with it strapped to my wrist though. Firstly, it’s got the entire suite of run tracking that I actually use. I can program in interval sessions from my app. I can customize the screen to show only the metrics I care about. It’ll tell me how tired I am from reading the variations in my heart rate, and even has a tiny map that I can sort of read when I’m trying to work out where I am. However, (map aside, and I don’t really need that) these are all things that I could get on the Garmin Forerunner 935, which is a lot sleeker and cheaper (the Fenix 5 Plus comes in at £550 / $700 / AU$1000, where the 935 can be found for around two thirds of that price). If you're interested, we have sniffed out the best Garmin deals on many different watches from the range. The one thing that keeps me locked to the Fenix 5 Plus is down to one simple fact: it’s got Spotify on board, meaning I can sync my playlists and podcasts to the watch and leave my phone fully at home. This is functionality that is sadly not widespread enough through the fitness watch industry and is still pretty new on Garmin too, locked to only the Forerunner 645 Music and the Fenix 5 range (and I’m still not desperate to buy the 645 Music after the poor battery life performance in my review). So, for now, I’m sticking with the Fenix 5 Plus - but I get the feeling that in 2019 we’re going to see more Spotify-enabled running watches hit the market from Garmin, complete with all the running data I crave but without the guilt of holding back something better suited to the wrist of an Iron Man contender. .

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Gareth Beavis is TechRadar's, Running Man of Tech, testing the latest in fitness technology in a never-ending quest to run further and faster and bringing you the results in this column.

If you want to say hi, he's @superbeav on Twitter

You can see his stumblings on Strava

And for more data, follow him on Smashrun

And if you want to get the full lowdown on the latest and greatest running tech, read the rest of the Running Man of Tech story here

READ MORE:

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/the-mystery-tracks-being-forced-on-your-spotify/

The mystery tracks being 'forced' on your Spotify

Image copyright Spotify

Mysterious musicians have cropped up on Spotify, racking up thousands of listens and (perhaps) hundreds of pounds. It’s a phenomenon that experts say could indicate a security flaw. But while Spotify denies that accounts have been hacked, the music streaming site has not explained how the playlists of some users indicate they’ve “listened to” musicians that nobody’s ever heard of.

They have names like Bergenulo Five, Bratte Night, DJ Bruej and Doublin Night. Apart from being musically unremarkable, they generally have a few things in common: short songs with few or no lyrics, illustrated with generic cover art, and short, non-descriptive song titles.

Interestingly, the bands also have little to no presence on the rest of the internet. At a time when social media plays a crucial role in connecting musicians and audiences, these artists have no fan pages, no concert listings, social media accounts or even photos of the actual musicians.

But somehow these mystery artists and a host of similar acts have snuck into people’s Spotify listening playlists, in some cases racking up thousands of listens and prompting a number of users to speculate that their accounts had been hacked.

Skip Twitter post by @robbiegirl

my spotify was hacked a couple months ago, so to whoever that was – your top sub genre was reggaton flow and your top artist was bergenulo five, my dude

— ᴹᶦˡˡᶦᵉ Robbie ᴮʳᵒʷⁿ (@robbiegirl) December 7, 2018

End of Twitter post by @robbiegirl

Many listeners (including this reporter) never actively searched for or played tracks by bands like Bergenulo Five, but found that their music ended up being logged in their listening history anyway.

The BBC asked Spotify for contact details for the artists in question. They declined, and all of our attempts to contact the bands were met with silence. But within a few days of our query, most of the mystery artists had disappeared from the music streaming site.

Some of the mystery artists who appeared – then disappeared – on Spotify

Bergenulo Five

Onxyia

Cappisko

Hundra Ao

Dj Bruej

Doublin Night

Bratte Night

Funkena

Do you know anything about them? Email BBC Trending.

‘Mysterycore’

Bergenulo Five is a typical – and fairly popular – artist in what might be called the “mysterycore” genre. On Spotify they initially had two albums posted – “Sunshine Here” and “Hit It Now”.

The cover art for each album was simple: the album title in black text over a bright colour. And each album was packed with more than 40 short songs each, most of them just a minute or two long, with no verses or choruses, and mostly one-word titles: Awake, Winter, Coming. Bergenulo Five songs had in total nearly 60,000 streams on Spotify by users of music tracking website Last FM.

Image copyright Spotify

Image caption How the Bergenulo Five’s album ��Hit It Now’ appeared on Spotify

Reddit, Twitter and Last FM’s fan pages are rife with negative comments from listeners who have noticed that according to their account history, they’ve been “playing” Bergenulo Five songs.

“What is this spam?” wrote one.

“So annoying,” added another.

On Reddit, Callum Dixon wrote: “The same Bergenulo Five keeps being played on my account and I’ve tried everything – changed my password, logged out of everywhere. I can’t stop it!”

Dixon also happens to be a cybersecurity graduate who wrote a thesis on Spotify – and speaking to the BBC, he suggested that something called access tokens had something to do with the sudden spread of mysterycore tracks.

You may also be interested in:

Access tokens

Access tokens are permissions granted when you use one website or social network to log into another site.

For instance, users can log into Spotify using their Facebook username and password. An electronic access token is granted which links the two accounts, and the method is generally secure.

“This worked brilliantly well, up until the point where the access tokens were breached,” says Tim Mackey of security software company Black Duck.

That’s a reference to a security problem announced by Facebook in September 2018. Initially the company said up to 50m accounts were affected, and people who were potentially caught up in the breach were prompted to re-enter their login details.

Facebook said that they cancelled all access tokens that might have been violated by the breach, thus keeping accounts secure.

But Mackey says that identifying exactly what was taken in the data breach is extremely complicated, and when it comes to cancelling the tokens, “you may end up with a certain small percentage that were missed.”

Facebook insists that all affected tokens were cancelled, and said that they have no evidence that the attackers – who have not been identified – used the tokens to access Spotify or any other sites or apps before September.

Mysterycore artists began cropping up on Spotify in early October 2018, shortly after the access token attack was made public. However, many Spotify users only noticed that their accounts had been logging tracks by the mystery bands later, when the streaming site promoted a widget that allowed users to post a list of their most-listened-to tracks of the year. Some people noticed that bands that they had never heard of, much less listened to, somehow made their personalised list.

Getting on Spotify

So how does a band with few fans and no digital footprint get their music on to Spotify in the first place?

It would have been fairly difficult until recently. Spotify was launched in 2008, and for most of the site’s history, record labels and companies were responsible for getting songs uploaded. But in September 2018, the company relaxed its rules, allowing independent artists to upload tracks to the service directly.

And popular artists are eligible for royalties. Because there are several variables, it’s difficult to calculate exactly how much one listen is worth, but one expert, Mark Mulligan of Midia Research, told BBC Trending radio that Bergenulo Five could have made about $500 to $600 (about £380 to £460) from 60,000 streams.

Hear more about the mystery artists on Spotify

Download the Trending podcast – from the BBC World Service

Spotify would not say whether it actually paid any money to the mystery artists, and did not give any information about who “forced” my account to play music from the Bergenulo Five and others.

“We take the artificial manipulation of streaming activity on our service extremely seriously,” the company said in a statement. “Spotify has multiple detection measures in place monitoring consumption on the service to detect, investigate and deal with such activity.”

Spotify denied that the mystery artists were linked to the Facebook access tokens breach, and underlined the statement from Facebook which said that no third-party accounts had been compromised. At the same time however, Spotify offered no explanation of how user accounts had been “forced” to play mystery tracks. Neither did they detail why the artists in question had their music taken off the site.

And so, in the absence of further disclosures by the company, mysterycore artists like Bergenulo Five will remain – well, a mystery.

Do you know more? Get in touch and let us know.

More from Trending: Blue Whale: The truth behind an online ‘suicide challenge’

Image copyright Getty Images

The “Blue Whale challenge” was reported to be an online “suicide game” aimed at teenagers which set 50 tasks over 50 days. The challenge was alleged to be linked to numerous deaths around the world. But little about the “game” was quite as it seemed. READ NOW

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.

[ninarogers]

I have made a playlist for every month of my life since September 2013, save a couple misses. I have never been reliable at keeping a written journal, but I’m also a child of consumption. I don’t always define myself through my organic feelings: they’re filtered through everything I watch and listen to. I am not sad, I am Bridget Jones. I am not sturdy, I am Mary Tyler Moore. Everything is a reference, and I am just a meme aggregator. My playlists are the most accurate depictions of my emotional state I have on record.

Something to keep in mind is that these playlists are essentially my monthly easy listens. These can be taken as a summary of my monthly vibes. I don’t pick too obscure because I’m not in high school anymore, and I am a little lazy.

Data is beautiful. This isn’t, because I am not careful. But it’s an interesting way to look at my listening habits. Have a look…

Quick Takeaways

Groove R&B also missed the genre cut, to my surprise. A symptom of my latent anxiety: singing about getting bodied has the tendency to make me think about my physical body, a source of panic for me.

I Know Places really finished strong, but all three of its inclusions were on the same playlist (Nov 2014, when 1989 was released). Taylor’s appearance was interesting though–all my playlists are on Spotify, where her music isn’t. I imported the song just to listen to it three times an hour. Today, it’s not even my fave from the album (it’s I Wish You Would, of course).

Are You Strong Enough To Be My Man? Nobody is. Sheryl ruined me

Rilo Kiley finishing first is no surprise. They’re the only band whose lyrics I’d get tattooed on my body (but I don’t, because I’d have to tell people I have a song lyric tattoo). I am, however, surprised that Whitney just missed the cut when I have a shrine to her in my bedroom. Fake news?

My methods of dividing into genre and subgenre are not empirical, but they do reveal how I view certain sounds. I’ve defined a couple of the more esoteric subgenres below:

- Indie Sweet - Indie genre, with a sound that feels sweet to me. They aren’t overly produced or lyrically confrontational. They sound Nice. Too much, though, and I feel sick. Ex. Belle & Sebastian, Regina Spektor, Waxahatchee

- Shine as a subgenre - Anything with a sheen. It’s a little electro, maybe a little mad. It’s modern. Ex. The Cure, Something in the Water by Carrie Underwood.

- Indie Nah - Honestly, shit I don’t care for anymore. I liked the song in the moment, but it fell back into sounding like a murmur-y piece of garbage melody without any bite to it. Ex. all these band names that sound made up:

- Octave Pop - She can sing! Ex. Adele, Whitney

- Feelings Rock v Whine Rock - Distinction depends on if I empathize. I empathize with Sheryl Crow, not Rivers Cuomo.

- Weird Pop - Just as poppy as Poppy Pop, but they don’t play it on the radio. But they should, really. See below

- Vintage as a subgenre - If a song didn’t easily fit into an already defined category and was older than ten years, I put it into vintage. Nirvana, Sugar Ray, and Third Eye Blind should not be in the same category theoretically, but I am just a girl.

WHO WON????

Octave Pop

EMO: POPPY V. TRUE The fun ones go more with my vibes.

BEYONCE 4 is still my favorite. @ me.

WEIRD POP To be frank, I’m surprised Fiona even appears here. She’s usually too weird to pair with anything else.

VIBES V. VINTAGE An argument could be made for The Beach Boys as vintage since Brian Wilson singles landed there but ultimately don’t their vibes win you over?

AM I STILL MAD AT DRAKE? You have no idea.

HOW BOW WAH

These playlists, as I said before, are not entirely representative of my listening output for the last three and a half years. There are songs you repeat for days at a time, albums you become obsessed with, and little things you don’t feel like pulling up on Spotify. Here are some things I listened to particularly a lot, enough to make their own, unmonthed lists:

1. Moana soundtrack (looped for month of November) 2. All I Want For Christmas Is You (during period of inertion, December) 3. That Bleachers album (only good altogether, but really not good at all) 4. The xx’s Aaliyah cover (truly remarkable, it lasted me many snowy walks home in January 2014) 5. The Cure’s entire output all at once, all the time 6. Kill My Boyfriend by Natalia Kills (very good when you reach the Anger stage of a breakup, August 2014) 7. A Fleetwood Mac/Rilo Kiley entire discogs alternating songs playlist (the only thing during the drive to Los Angeles, Dec 14/Jan 15) 8. Various emo/pop punk band radio stations (an anytime affair, continuously) 9. Michael Jackson (bought a monster singles compilation that stays in my car’s CD player) 10. West Side Story

MISSING MONTHS

I missed a total of seven months in creating these lists: August 2014, December 2014, and July-November 2016.

August 2014

My college apartment’s lease had finally run out. I had six weeks until the next one started. My Cute Transience had no time to think about Ben Gibbard. I stayed in four different rooms in three different apartments for six weeks. All the mattresses smelled like potatoes. One room was technically a front parlor. Evanston IL never felt so suffocating.

December 2014

I quit my job. I left Evanston for home in Tennessee. I had the vaguest plan to move to California, but I had no job or apartment or any ties anywhere. I drove home with all my earthly possessions stuffed in my Honda Civic. After three weeks of my mom asking why I didn’t have a boyfriend and my dad slipping me the Nashville classifieds I shoved all my garbage back into my Civic and drove 2000 miles to Los Angeles. It took eight days, four stops, and two days of being stranded in small town Texas to get there. I almost died (existentially, and literally). It took me two years to process this as something that happened to me in my life.

July-November 2016

My anxiety had been building steadily for the last three years. My physical health was declining, ever so slightly, enough for me to feel paranoid for even thinking about it. Have you ever been scared of your body? Has your body ever betrayed you? Have doctors? I asked so many what was wrong with me and they told me to drink more water, see a therapist, stop worrying about it. (Later, I did do all those things, and they did help. But not with my state of mind.) It’s so strange to feel yourself turning inwards but to have no desire to stop it. I was afraid of thinking about what was wrong, so I thought about nothing. I was afraid of distracting myself to the point of forgetting, lest my body decline even more, so I did nothing. I felt nothing for six months. I don’t recommend it.

CONCLUSIONS

- The graph doesn’t show how much country is making a general resurgence in my life–but, of course, only the Shine variety. Get Jason Aldean out of here

- Emo music has dropped off my monthly playlists, but my All Time Low radio station is always within the last five lists I’ve played. When I’m in the mood, I can’t just have one–I need it all.

- Indie dropped off in December of 2016–softboys were hard to take right after emerging from a cocoon of depression. I replaced it with a song off the Hamilton mixtape (Satisfied–honestly not my fave!) I did listen to Wait For It (original recording) for days at a time, on loop. I don’t recommend, on the whole.

THE PLAYLISTS Some are better than others.

September 2013 October 2013 November 2013 December 2013 January 2014 February 2014 March 2014 April 2014 May 2014 June 2014 July 2014 September 2014 October 2014 November 2014 January 2015 February 2015 March 2015 April 2015 May 2015 June 2015 July 2015 August 2015 September 2015 October 2015 November 2015 December 2015 January 2016 February 2016 March 2016 April 2016 May 2016 June 2016 December 2016 January 2017

NB: Spotify removes all instances of my Chance and Taylor Swift inclusions. Check the raw data to be sure.

And here’s my raw data. I input it all by hand, so. It’s probably missing some. 

[actutrends]

Spotify will suspend political advertising in early 2020

( Reuters)— Spotify stated on Friday it would pause selling political advertisements on its music streaming platform in early2020 The world’s most popular paid music streaming service, with nearly 141 million users tuning into its ad-supported platform in October, said the time out would encompass Spotify original and special podcasts also. The relocation, which was initially reported by Ad Age, comes as projects for the U.S. governmental election in November 2020 heat up.

Online platforms consisting of Facebook and Alphabet’s Google are under growing pressure to authorities false information on their platforms and stop carrying political ads that include incorrect or deceptive claims. Twitter banned political ads in October and, last month, Google said it would stop giving marketers the capability to target election ads using data such as public citizen records and general political associations.

” At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our processes, systems and tools to responsibly verify and review this material,” a Spotify spokesperson stated in a statement to Reuters. “We will reassess this decision as we continue to develop our capabilities.”

Spotify, which was just accepting political advertising in the United States, did not address a Reuters concern on just how much earnings the company creates from political ads.

” Spotify wasn’t a widely used online advertising platform for campaigns previously,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. “However as other online platforms restricted their political ad inventory, marketers were on the hunt for brand-new choices.”

The brand-new policy will cover political groups such as prospects for workplace, chosen and designated authorities, political parties, political action committees (PACs) and SuperPACS, along with material that promotes for or against those entities. Spotify will also not sell ads that advocate for legislative and judicial outcomes. The move only applies to Spotify’s ad sales, not advertisements embedded in third-party material, though those will still be subject to Spotify’s wider content policies.

The post Spotify will suspend political advertising in early 2020 appeared first on Actu Trends.

[theinvinciblenoob]

I argued in my recent post What’s Next for Podcasting? that we’re at a pivot point where podcasting is becoming a mainstream content format for all types of shows and creators as Hollywood enters the fray. There’s a surge of interest by both creatives and businesspeople in podcasts right now, so I’ve compiled a reading guide to help newcomers get up to speed on the state of the podcasting market.

Follow these links for thoughtful analysis by operators, investors, and journalists in the space and let me know (@epeckham / email) what other posts I should add to the list.

[We are experimenting with new content formats at TechCrunch. This reading list is one of those experiments. Provide feedback directly to the author, Eric Peckham, our columnist focused on the intersection of media, technology, and finance.]

I. Background: The Rise of Podcasting

Timeline of Podcasting | October 2015 | Vanessa Quirk created an interactive timeline to highlight the development of the podcast as a new content medium (on behalf of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University).

Audible Revolution | February 2004 | Ben Hammersley wrote about the rise of this new “online radio” format back in 2004 for The Guardian, featuring early efforts by then-startup Audible to focus on it instead of audiobooks.

The Future of Podcasting: A History Lesson | July 2017 | Justine Moore and Olivia Moore from VC firm CRV outlined the rise of podcasting up to 2017 as part of a 5-part series on the format. From the initial development of RSS feeds and coining of the term to initial hype, a lull for many years, and then a resurgence in 2014 as Apple launched its Podcasts app and the premiere of the hit podcast Serial.

II. Background: Data on the Current Market

The Future of Podcasting: Where Are We Now? | July 2017 | Justine and Olivia Moore highlighted data on the state of podcasting in summer 2017, looking at consumer awareness of the format and demographics. They also note barriers to growth.

The Podcast Consumer 2018 | April 2018 | Edison Research’s widely-cited annual report on who is listening to podcasts and how. They also create the more broadly focused annual report The Infinite Dial (in US, Canada, and Australia versions) that puts podcasting in the context of music streaming, radio, voice interfaces, and general consumer audio trends.

There is additional country-specific research out there for Canada (Canadian Podcast Listener), the UK (Ofcom Communications Market Report), Germany (Bitkom), and Sweden (EGTA). James Cridland, editor of podnews.net made a 15-minute presentation comparing podcasting internationally as well.

Full Year 2017 Podcast Ad Revenue Study | June 2018 | The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released this report on the size of the US podcast advertising market. These are the stats most news articles and industry experts refer to as the “market size” of podcasting but they are only the podcast advertising market. The overwhelming majority of revenue in podcasting is certainly understood to come from ads, but there are also many podcasts collecting Patreon donations, selling merchandise, generating touring income, and–in a few cases–getting royalties from books/films/shows based on their podcast or charging paid subscriptions.

Mind the Gap: Part One | August 2018 | Alex Taussig, a partner at Lightspeed, outlines the growth trajectories of both podcasting and voice interfaces (like Alexa) to highlight how monetization of new technologies or mediums typically lag consumer adoption.

III. Key Players: The Key Companies and Shows

One-Sentence Reviews of the Entire Podcast Listening Landscape | May 2017 | Erik Jones wrote short descriptions of the numerous podcast streaming apps out there in spring 2017. Even more have launched since but it’s a helpful guide for becoming aware of many of the players in the space.

Podcast Industry Audience Rankings | updated monthly | PodTrac ranks the 20 most listened to podcast shows and the 10 most listened to podcast publishers.

Podcast charts | updated hourly | Podcast analytics company Chartable has charts for the most downloaded/streamed podcasts for four top podcast players: Apple, Spotify Stitcher, and Breaker. Charts are global and by country.

What’s really the top podcast hosting service? | August 2018 | Podcast analytics company Chartable shared data on the market share among podcasting’s feed generators, feed redirection services, and media hosting services.

How People Listen to Podcasts | November 2018 | New podcast creation app Anchor shared their September 2018 data on podcasts that were distributed via Anchor, framing Apple Podcasts continued domination of market share but the rapid rise of Spotify as the clear second-place.

IV. Business Model

MailKimp, SchmailChimp: Podcast Ads are Rambling and Unpredictable. So Why Do Sponsors Love Them? | December 2014 | Alison Griswold chronicles how the intimacy of host-read ads on podcasts appeals to advertisers, even if it means the host doesn’t stick to an exact script.

Guide to Podcasting | December 2015 | Vanessa Quirk of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism published a report on the history, market, and business models of podcasting, including case studies on the implementation of different business models.

The Future of Podcasting: How Do Podcasts Make Money? | August 2017 | Justine and Olivia Moore evaluate how podcasters make money, mainly focusing on ads/sponsorships (which are mostly direct response) and early efforts at paid subscriptions.

FOMO in China is a $7B Industry | September 2018 | Marketplace China correspondent Jennifer Pak wrote about (and recorded a podcast episode discussing) China’s $7.3 billion market for paid podcasts. Unlike in the US, it is the norm to pay for podcast content in China. This the inverse of other content formats where paid subscriptions are common in the US but not the norm in China.

What’s Next for Podcasting? Subscriptions and Exclusives | October 2018 | Eric Peckham framed the current state of the podcast business, the opportunity for a much greater diversity of show formats, and the rapidly growing interest by music streaming services and major Hollywood players. I argue that podcasting is in the early days of shifting from a model of free, ad-supported content available on every media player toward a model more like that of streaming TV, with paid subscriptions and exclusive shows.

‘A pain in the ass for users’: Subscription publishers wrestle with delivering exclusive audio | May 2018 | Max Willens at Digiday chronicled the frustration of media companies who have tried offering podcasts exclusively to paying subscribers, given the lack of technology infrastructure for doing so.

Why podcasting companies are getting more into scripted shows | September 2018 | Max Willens at Digiday notes a feeding frenzy of popular podcasts getting optioned for films, TV shows, and books and the growing focus on producing narrative-style podcasts. He points out that the current advertising model for podcasting makes generating a worthwhile ROI on high-quality narrative shows tougher.

V. Other arguments and predictions

Where Does Podcasting Go Next? A Manifesto for Growth | August 2018 | Tom Webster, the SVP at Edison Research who co-authors the annual Infinite Dial report on the podcasting market, notes that podcasting’s growth has been slow-and-steady, not an explosion, and emphasizes the challenges podcasting still facing in mainstream consumer adoption. He argues in favor of more entertainment podcasts that reflect what’s popular on TV and argues in favor of dropping the term “subscribing to a podcast” because it causes many people to misunderstand that they have to pay for podcasts.

IAB’s Podcast Measurement Guidelines | December 2017 | The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the leading trade organization in the US for advertising and advertising-reliant publishing companies. In 2016, it released its first technical guidelines on how to measure podcast performance in order to create an industry standard and reduce double-counting. It updated them in 2017.

To Make Real Money, The Podcast Industry Needs to Stop Calling Them Podcasts | March 2016 | Venture capitalist Hunter Walk argued that podcasting needs to generate “listener revenue” in order to scale as an industry–not just rely on brand sponsorships–and needs to abandon the term “podcast” to do so because people firmly associate podcasts with free content.

Can Podcasts Rescue Spotify’s Business Model? | November 2018 | Tim Ingham argued in Rolling Stone that the fundamentals of Spotify’s business model prevent it becoming a profitable company (unless it can somehow cut out the record labels), and that’s why Spotify’s executives have decided to make such an aggressive push into podcasting over 2018.

State of Podcasts 2018 | July 2018 | Building off their 2017 assessment, Justine Moore and Olivia Moore a CRV outlined the pain points the podcast industry in still changes, the biggest changes under way, and where they see opportunity for entrepreneurs.

VI. News Sources

Nieman Lab – a popular news and analysis site run by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, focused on the news publishing industry but also tracking the development of podcasting.

Podnews.net – a daily newsletter and site by James Cridland, a British radio/audio industry expert in Australia.

Hot Pod – a subscription news site covering the podcast industry, run by Nick Quah. It has a free weekly newsletter for non-subscribers as well.

Hearing Voices – a weekly newsletter by betaworks ventures partner Matt Hartman on audio/voice interfaces and startup opportunities.

TechCrunch: try the podcast, podcasts, and podcasting tags for archives.

via TechCrunch

[fmservers]

Reading List: Podcasting

I argued in my recent post What’s Next for Podcasting? that we’re at a pivot point where podcasting is becoming a mainstream content format for all types of shows and creators as Hollywood enters the fray. There’s a surge of interest by both creatives and businesspeople in podcasts right now, so I’ve compiled a reading guide to help newcomers get up to speed on the state of the podcasting market.

Follow these links for thoughtful analysis by operators, investors, and journalists in the space and let me know (@epeckham / email) what other posts I should add to the list.

[We are experimenting with new content formats at TechCrunch. This reading list is one of those experiments. Provide feedback directly to the author, Eric Peckham, our columnist focused on the intersection of media, technology, and finance.]

I. Background: The Rise of Podcasting

Timeline of Podcasting | October 2015 | Vanessa Quirk created an interactive timeline to highlight the development of the podcast as a new content medium (on behalf of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University).

Audible Revolution | February 2004 | Ben Hammersley wrote about the rise of this new “online radio” format back in 2004 for The Guardian, featuring early efforts by then-startup Audible to focus on it instead of audiobooks.

The Future of Podcasting: A History Lesson | July 2017 | Justine Moore and Olivia Moore from VC firm CRV outlined the rise of podcasting up to 2017 as part of a 5-part series on the format. From the initial development of RSS feeds and coining of the term to initial hype, a lull for many years, and then a resurgence in 2014 as Apple launched its Podcasts app and the premiere of the hit podcast Serial.

II. Background: Data on the Current Market

The Future of Podcasting: Where Are We Now? | July 2017 | Justine and Olivia Moore highlighted data on the state of podcasting in summer 2017, looking at consumer awareness of the format and demographics. They also note barriers to growth.

The Podcast Consumer 2018 | April 2018 | Edison Research’s widely-cited annual report on who is listening to podcasts and how. They also create the more broadly focused annual report The Infinite Dial (in US, Canada, and Australia versions) that puts podcasting in the context of music streaming, radio, voice interfaces, and general consumer audio trends.

There is additional country-specific research out there for Canada (Canadian Podcast Listener), the UK (Ofcom Communications Market Report), Germany (Bitkom), and Sweden (EGTA). James Cridland, editor of podnews.net made a 15-minute presentation comparing podcasting internationally as well.

Full Year 2017 Podcast Ad Revenue Study | June 2018 | The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released this report on the size of the US podcast advertising market. These are the stats most news articles and industry experts refer to as the “market size” of podcasting but they are only the podcast advertising market. The overwhelming majority of revenue in podcasting is certainly understood to come from ads, but there are also many podcasts collecting Patreon donations, selling merchandise, generating touring income, and–in a few cases–getting royalties from books/films/shows based on their podcast or charging paid subscriptions.

Mind the Gap: Part One | August 2018 | Alex Taussig, a partner at Lightspeed, outlines the growth trajectories of both podcasting and voice interfaces (like Alexa) to highlight how monetization of new technologies or mediums typically lag consumer adoption.

III. Key Players: The Key Companies and Shows

One-Sentence Reviews of the Entire Podcast Listening Landscape | May 2017 | Erik Jones wrote short descriptions of the numerous podcast streaming apps out there in spring 2017. Even more have launched since but it’s a helpful guide for becoming aware of many of the players in the space.

Podcast Industry Audience Rankings | updated monthly | PodTrac ranks the 20 most listened to podcast shows and the 10 most listened to podcast publishers.

Podcast charts | updated hourly | Podcast analytics company Chartable has charts for the most downloaded/streamed podcasts for four top podcast players: Apple, Spotify Stitcher, and Breaker. Charts are global and by country.

What’s really the top podcast hosting service? | August 2018 | Podcast analytics company Chartable shared data on the market share among podcasting’s feed generators, feed redirection services, and media hosting services.

How People Listen to Podcasts | November 2018 | New podcast creation app Anchor shared their September 2018 data on podcasts that were distributed via Anchor, framing Apple Podcasts continued domination of market share but the rapid rise of Spotify as the clear second-place.

IV. Business Model

MailKimp, SchmailChimp: Podcast Ads are Rambling and Unpredictable. So Why Do Sponsors Love Them? | December 2014 | Alison Griswold chronicles how the intimacy of host-read ads on podcasts appeals to advertisers, even if it means the host doesn’t stick to an exact script.

Guide to Podcasting | December 2015 | Vanessa Quirk of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism published a report on the history, market, and business models of podcasting, including case studies on the implementation of different business models.

The Future of Podcasting: How Do Podcasts Make Money? | August 2017 | Justine and Olivia Moore evaluate how podcasters make money, mainly focusing on ads/sponsorships (which are mostly direct response) and early efforts at paid subscriptions.

FOMO in China is a $7B Industry | September 2018 | Marketplace China correspondent Jennifer Pak wrote about (and recorded a podcast episode discussing) China’s $7.3 billion market for paid podcasts. Unlike in the US, it is the norm to pay for podcast content in China. This the inverse of other content formats where paid subscriptions are common in the US but not the norm in China.

What’s Next for Podcasting? Subscriptions and Exclusives | October 2018 | Eric Peckham framed the current state of the podcast business, the opportunity for a much greater diversity of show formats, and the rapidly growing interest by music streaming services and major Hollywood players. I argue that podcasting is in the early days of shifting from a model of free, ad-supported content available on every media player toward a model more like that of streaming TV, with paid subscriptions and exclusive shows.

‘A pain in the ass for users’: Subscription publishers wrestle with delivering exclusive audio | May 2018 | Max Willens at Digiday chronicled the frustration of media companies who have tried offering podcasts exclusively to paying subscribers, given the lack of technology infrastructure for doing so.

Why podcasting companies are getting more into scripted shows | September 2018 | Max Willens at Digiday notes a feeding frenzy of popular podcasts getting optioned for films, TV shows, and books and the growing focus on producing narrative-style podcasts. He points out that the current advertising model for podcasting makes generating a worthwhile ROI on high-quality narrative shows tougher.

V. Other arguments and predictions

Where Does Podcasting Go Next? A Manifesto for Growth | August 2018 | Tom Webster, the SVP at Edison Research who co-authors the annual Infinite Dial report on the podcasting market, notes that podcasting’s growth has been slow-and-steady, not an explosion, and emphasizes the challenges podcasting still facing in mainstream consumer adoption. He argues in favor of more entertainment podcasts that reflect what’s popular on TV and argues in favor of dropping the term “subscribing to a podcast” because it causes many people to misunderstand that they have to pay for podcasts.

IAB’s Podcast Measurement Guidelines | December 2017 | The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the leading trade organization in the US for advertising and advertising-reliant publishing companies. In 2016, it released its first technical guidelines on how to measure podcast performance in order to create an industry standard and reduce double-counting. It updated them in 2017.

To Make Real Money, The Podcast Industry Needs to Stop Calling Them Podcasts | March 2016 | Venture capitalist Hunter Walk argued that podcasting needs to generate “listener revenue” in order to scale as an industry–not just rely on brand sponsorships–and needs to abandon the term “podcast” to do so because people firmly associate podcasts with free content.

Can Podcasts Rescue Spotify’s Business Model? | November 2018 | Tim Ingham argued in Rolling Stone that the fundamentals of Spotify’s business model prevent it becoming a profitable company (unless it can somehow cut out the record labels), and that’s why Spotify’s executives have decided to make such an aggressive push into podcasting over 2018.

State of Podcasts 2018 | July 2018 | Building off their 2017 assessment, Justine Moore and Olivia Moore a CRV outlined the pain points the podcast industry in still changes, the biggest changes under way, and where they see opportunity for entrepreneurs.

VI. News Sources

Nieman Lab – a popular news and analysis site run by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, focused on the news publishing industry but also tracking the development of podcasting.

Podnews.net – a daily newsletter and site by James Cridland, a British radio/audio industry expert in Australia.

Hot Pod – a subscription news site covering the podcast industry, run by Nick Quah. It has a free weekly newsletter for non-subscribers as well.

Hearing Voices – a weekly newsletter by betaworks ventures partner Matt Hartman on audio/voice interfaces and startup opportunities.

TechCrunch: try the podcast, podcasts, and podcasting tags for archives.

Via Eric Peckham https://techcrunch.com