Want your Spotify account to remain? Better disable that Adblocker

Releasing a new version of their terms of service, Spotify has promised to take a harder stance on ad blockers, bots and fraudulent streaming activities, starting March 1st. 

Ad blockers have always been an easy loophole for consumers, and a headache for publishers. The company confirmed in March last year that it had 2,000,000 users using ad blockers on the free version of Spotify. While that sounds a lot, it's only 1.3% of Spotify's total user base, yet it warrants enough attention as it restates usage metrics. 

The new guidelines specify that “circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating and distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service” may now result in “immediate termination or suspension of your Spotify account.”

During its last quarter earning report announcement yesterday, Spotify shows positive income and free cash flow for the first time since it was founded. Revenue, however, was below expectations because of intense competition from other streaming services, with subscribers increasing 36 percent to 96 million. Paid subscriptions now compose nearly 88% of Spotify's turnover - which is why Spotify wants to release the potential of ad supported revenue. And with Spotify's actual user base of 153,000,000 people across the world (and expanding), ad supported revenue can really bring in the billions. 

The End of the News Website

NowThis is a young media and news company that exclusively publishes its content on social media platforms. After being a news startup like many others, in february 2015 they decided to take their website with content offline and focus on tailored videos through external channels. This DIGIDAY article about how NowThis tries to crack mobile video made me generally think about the future of media businesses, websites and their mobile publishing channels.

"NowThis, founded by former Huffington Post execs Ken Lerer and Eric Hippeau and backed by $5 million in venture capital, plays to the sensibilities of an always-on, always-social, always-sharing audience." That's why they optimize their video content, with a goal of 15-20 daily videos published, for mobile platforms and screens. With a team of more than 30 editors and content creators in their New York office they are constantly producing news for a young generation of media consumers.

In my opinion, this is further intensifying the battle about the future of the news industry. Traditional players are not only challenged by how to monetize their content in a digital world. The concept of a website with paywall, also known as "walled garden", is still an experiment to many while startups like NowThis are already moving beyond this and claim that a website is out of date.
There are numerous young companies like Circa, Quartz, or Insider that are innovating distribution and content creation.  Insider for example is a Business Insider spinn-off from the German media conglomerate Springer, starting exclusively with a Facebook page. Bild Online, the web spinn-off of Germany's most popular daily newspaper produces their own daily news in a smartphone screen format. What you can observe there is that not only the distribution of content is changing, but the entire storytelling. Original content from print or web media is not just cut down to make it fit into another platform like Instagram or Snapchat. NowThis and its ambitious peers are creating original content individually for all relevant mobile platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Kik. That's how they are able to respect the particular cultures, tones, and follow the best practice success codes of every platform.

Mobile is a great opportunity for innovative news companies but it is also an additional stress factor that challenges traditional players.

Three Social Media Mistakes Walmart Is Making Right Now

Retailer giant Walmart has been known of its successful commerce- the ability to sell products. While retailer certainly should be aggressive to promote its products through advertisements, they often oversee many mistakes, and some of which are detrimental. In this article, one of Walmart’s major campaigns serves as a great example: Greenlight A Vet, a campaign to honor veterans for the rapidly approaching Veteran’s Day on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I assume that you have noticed Greenlight A Vet ads online, if not on TV. The ads ask Americans to leave a green light on I their homes and offices to show support for veterans. The company has even created a website and a YouTube Channel to promote the idea. The website specifically presented that Walmart is the ultimate sponsor and there is very little crossover between Walmart’s main digital properties and the campaign. As an outsider, I perceived the greenlight event completely divorced with Walmart itself. The advertisement involves significant mistakes.

First of all, the call to action is weak. Although the hope of supporting veterans is absolutely welcoming, but the campaign itself is slick, with just enough emotional touch to create a feel-good feeling and not much else. From my own perspective, I would ask myself, why would I blurb a light bulb for someone I do not know? I have much more stuff to finish and this is just a waste of time and energy, and most importantly, I get nothing from doing so. That is, Walmart merely just invited people to participate and light a bulb, what other meanings can this action delivers to the public? A more practical method of promoting support of veterans could be asking people to post a photo with a green light bulb and hashtag veteran or something similar to that notion. The point is to invite people to participate in the dialogue by asking them to submit their own stories and experiences. A mere promotion in social spaces is just not enough.

Second, commerce and community are not connected. How would you expect people to participate in your event when there is no direct link to buy a green light bulb? If Walmart wants to promote sales and commerce, not only should it provides the online access to purchase light bulbs, but also offers discount on the entire purchase if people share a photo of light green bulb. Ideas like this would definitely help promote the campaign.

Last but not least, a disjointed content strategy is a big mistake. Consumers are exposed to various colors of green light bulb, but are not reminded about what the bulbs are! That is, people have no idea what positions they are in, thus further confused by the link between Walmart and the event website. My recommendation is to put “Are you inspired by the video?” and the “Yes” button takes people to the shopping cart of the green light bulb. This way, it is more logical for consumers to understand what is happening and how to support the veterans in action.

In sum, the effort is noble, yet it requires sophistication and adjustment in order to be more effective. Every company makes mistakes, including a retail giant like Walmart.