Spotify Steps Up With Free Analytics For Artists, Concert Ticketing and Merch Sales

Though it seemed likely that Spotify would eventually add useful services for artists, I'm still more excited by the actual news than I would have expected. Spotify is now offering a bunch of educational news for musicians about the service (not so exciting but needed), free analytics powered by Next Big Sound for artists and management, ticketing sales added to Songkick's concert listings and upcoming plans to offer merch sales via Topspin. Though issues will still be raised about payouts, Spotify's just taken a huge step forward, eliminating the ability for new music services to launch with artist support as a differentiating factor.

Partnerships with Next Big Sound, Songkick and Topspin

Yesterday Spotify launched Spotify for Artists, a new site drawing together information for musicians plus their new artist services.

The Spotify Explained section alone is worth spending some time with. It basically lays out Spotify's views of what's happening with payments and the bigger picture. Especially key are its discussion of royalty payments.

In addition to explaining themselves, Spotify introduced the full range of what they're now trying to do for artists:

Analytics by Next Big Sound

"We have teamed up exclusively with our friends at Next Big Sound to develop an Artist Analytics dashboard that will allow artists and managers to view enormous amounts of Spotify’s data relating to their music. This will give any artist on Spotify access to data that illustrates how their music is being heard around the world…Artists can use these new analytics tools to understand how their songs spread for months and years after a release."

More details for artists here.

Ticketing via Songkick

"We have now rolled out concert listings within our service on both desktop and iPhone. All Spotify users can see when their favorite artists are playing shows in their areas, browse more information about the shows, and click to buy tickets immediately. These listings, powered by Songkick, are appearing throughout the service, on Artist Pages, and in users’ Discover feeds…already, over 2 million concerts are being browsed on Spotify every month."

Get your concert listings on Songkick.

Merch Sales via Topspin

"In the upcoming months, we will also be the first music service to roll-out merchandise listings within our apps in partnership with Topspin. As with concerts, this approach will allow fans to see and buy new items from their favorite artists while providing artists a valuable new channel to advertise their Topspin merch offers. Any artist will be able to easily upload and display merch on Spotify (linking to their own merch store) using Topspin’s proven tools, and best of all, we’ll be offering this service for free!"

Sign up here to get in on future merch sales.

To keep up with further developments, you can sign up for Spotify's Artist/Manager Newsletter here.

Is your music not yet on Spotify? Here's how to get started.

More:

• Spotify Raises Another $250 Million At $4 Billion Valuation
• Songkick Adds Ticketing To iOS App, Announces 8.5 Million Unique Users, Over 50% Of Traffic Via Mobile
• Zoë Keating Shares Update Of Her Streaming Music Revenue

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/Facebook) is building a writing hub at Flux Research. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

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