Posts Tagged ‘spotify’

02
Oct
2018

The monopoly of the tech giants

categories: social media

Here’s the real danger that Facebook, Google, and the other tech monopolies pose to our society

Jamie Bartlett, October 1, 2018, https://blog.ed.ted.com/2018/10/01/heres-the-real-danger-that-facebook-google-and-the-other-tech-monopolies-pose-to-our-society/

distributed computing + power encryption = the future of Internet

the Dark Net is going mainstream, liberty, freedom, democracy; neither entirely dark, not entirely light, both things

The threat that tech monopolies pose to democracies is about more than the prices they charge: it’s the concentration of power, data and control over the public space — and their ability to wield this power over a growing number of economic activities, especially in the infrastructure and technologies of the future. The following companies operate as either monopolies or oligopolies in their respective fields: Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify. Integrated into everything, everywhere, their technology will blanket the world.

cultural hegemony.” That is, where domination can be achieved through controlling the ideas and assumptions available to the public. The idea, associated with philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci

In 1995, left-wing academics Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron detailed the philosophy and ideas of the new tech wunderkinds, christening it “The Californian Ideology.” This ideology represented a fusion of the cultural bohemianism of San Francisco and entrepreneurial free market zeal.

All you needed to get to utopia was a belief in “disruption,” the idea that progress is achieved through smashing up old industries and institutions and replacing them with something new and digital.

Money and ideas in Silicon Valley have a very complicated relationship. Silicon Valley runs according to a Faustian pact: money in exchange for world-changing ideas.

Over the years, the big tech firms have very carefully cultivated the Californian Ideology. Even though they are massive multi-billion-dollar corporations with huge PR teams, they pitch themselves as anti-establishment.The worse these companies behave and the richer they become, the more they spend on looking cool and talking about fairness and community.

And to whom do we look in order to solve our collective social problems? It’s no longer the state, but the modern tech-geek superhero.

Total victory for the monopoly is not over economics or politics. It’s over assumptions, ideas and possible futures.

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more on social media in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media

25
Mar
2018

Spotify

categories: educational technology, information technology, media literacy, social media
“Spotify Saved Music. Can It Save Itself? – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-23/spotify-saved-music-can-it-save-itself” via Digg
Ek, 35, started Spotify in 2006 because he thought he could stamp out the piracy that had ravaged the music business. He was right.
More than 70 million people now pay Spotify an average of about $5 a month to access 35 million songs, plus playlists and podcasts. In private transactions, investors have valued the company at more than $20 billion.
There’s only one small flaw in the business model: Spotify doesn’t make any money. The service has reported higher losses in three consecutive years despite quadrupling sales. It’s hard to be profitable when music-rights holders collect more than 75¢ on every dollar that comes in.
 Pandora Media Inc.hasn’t been profitable in six years as a public company. Deezer SA, a European service once seen as a Spotify rival, called off an initial public offering in 2015. If you don’t remember Grooveshark, MOG, Songza, or Rdio, it’s because they shut down or were bought by larger companies. Meanwhile, the tech giants don’t mind losing money on music if it helps sell other stuff
Ek is optimistic. “The music industry today is quite inefficient when it comes to breaking artists, when it comes to promoting and marketing artists,” he said at the investor presentation. “There is a tremendous opportunity in connecting these 3 million artists we have today with these 160 million-plus users that we have.” The question now is whether investors think he can do that and how much profit he can wring out each time he does.
02
Apr
2016

your social media account cracked

categories: cracker, digital citizenship, digital identity, Digital literacy, Digital rights management (DRM), Facebook, hacker, information technology, Instagram, instructional technology, social media, technology literacy

This is what happens when someone hacks your Spotify account

Alex Heath, Apr. 1, 2016, 11:23 AM

It’s become increasingly common for hackers to sell compromised streaming accounts for services like Netflix, HBO, and Spotify on the dark web — a section of the internet only accessible from a special web browser. These account passwords are often recovered from phishing attempts, a hacking method that involves tricking someone into giving up their account info to what appears to be a legit source.

My note:
There is a strong necessity to distinguish between a cracker and hacker. Here is a good reading on the topic:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/hacker-vs-cracker/

More in this blog, how crackers can access your account:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=crackers&submit=Search

07
Jan
2015

iTunes in decline

categories: digital identity, information technology, instructional technology, Library and information science

With Downloads In Decline, Can iTunes Adapt?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2015/01/06/375173595/with-downloads-in-decline-can-itunes-adapt

Spotify is simpler. It’s all about music. Mosley has switched over, saying he’s willing to pay the $10 monthly subscription fee for the premium, ad-free version of the service because it’s so much easier to use.