This past week, Spotify has made it very clear that they are a podcast service first and a music service second. Regardless of how you feel about Neil Young, his music, or him asking Spotify to remove his music if they’re going to keep Joe Rogan’s podcast going, Spotify put a flag in the sand. This isn’t my first rodeo moving off Spotify either. This added something extra: unification of years split between many music streaming services. ...
If you have not heard the news, Google Fiber is no longer expanding its installation in the 10 markets they service and the head of Google Access (the Google Fiber overlord company), Craig Barratt, is stepping down. Also in the news, was a little-publicized statement from AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, where he said, “I will be sorely disappointed if we are not going head-to-head” with cable companies by 2021. As an aside, AT&T’s plan to compete with cable providers is already feasible. AT&T is already testing its 5G network and expects a full 5G deployment by 2020-2021. A 5G network will be more than capable of providing TV over internet. AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV and their upcoming 5G network means they have the ability to go head-to-head with cable companies in a big way. They only need Time Warner to compete with Comcast because Comcast owns content creators; AT&T does not. ...
If you have not heard, Verizon announced they are going to acquire Yahoo. This ends a very long, drawn out bidding process in what has been the very long death of Yahoo. Yahoo, the brand, probably will not disappear in this deal (much like how AOL is still a brand after its acquisition by Verizon). AOL and Yahoo have benefitted greatly from their once high times. AOL’s story is well known (technological advances eroding their user base). But Yahoo’s downfall has taken significantly longer. The end of Yahoo was pretty much inevitable the day they said they could no longer compete with Google (back in the early 2000s). What can we learn from Yahoo’s downfall? ...