1. Apple Music- It might not be the biggest streaming platform right now, but Apple Music brought music subscription to the masses. It’s great to have such a power house marketing this model.

2. Periscope/Live Streaming Apps- Live Video has been around for some time now, but these new live streaming social apps have given the power of easily broadcasting live video to the masses. Easy to use and quick to push out, artist need these types of simple to use tools to create content for their audience. 

 

3. Facebook Video – Everyone's Facebook feed is exploding with auto play videos… from quick cook recipes, to video memes and hijacked viral videos from YouTube.  Artist have latched onto this Facebook trend and have started creating more compelling video content for Facebook. Artist are quickly seeing the pays off with higher reach from these native forms of content. 

4. Streaming Data Program: Pandora AMP / Spotify Fan Insight / YouTube Music Insights – One of the best things this year was the launch of these back end data hubs for each of the big streaming service. These platforms bring a little transparency to their true reach and audience. This has helped to show the audience that artists have on each of these services and helps to  focus artists on this new forms of music consumption. 

 

5. Tidal – Not the most successful launch, but an important event and case study for all in the industry to look at and learn from. Mass appeal, mass audience, mass marketing does not equal a success in tech and music. We also learned that fans don’t seem to be lining up to lay down their credit card just because their favorite artist is a ‘co-founder’  or because they have exclusive content.