You’re probably wondering why we do not buy music anymore. It’s over the days of going to the local store and shelling out $15 dollars for the latest album by our favorite artist. iTunes and the downloadable music market have almost killed the market. However, it’s been discovered that something completely new has emerged that’s destroying iTunes and the music download industry: Spotify.
Why doesn’t Taylor Swift Like Spotify?
In the new and exciting realm of music streaming, you, as well as I, don’t have to buy music. What we do is sign up for the streamer service. There are many of them that have names that are familiar to us: Pandora, Beats, Spotify, and many more. For a small fee, these services let us let them know what type of music we enjoy (Rock, Country, Soul, and so on.), and they’ll select music that is compatible with our preferences and create a never-ending music track that we can listen to. It’s clear that this has changed the definition of development for music-related products.
This type of music consumption is expanding like a flower. The RIAA states that streaming services such as Spotify increased by 28% in the first quarter of 2014 and currently account for 27 percent of the industry’s revenue. Since it’s completely new, it means that the rules haven’t yet been formulated, which is the reason why Taylor Swift is in dispute with Spotify.
What exactly happened? Simply put, Taylor Swift had a new album out in 1989 in which she and her record label were looking to increase sales. Her record company spoke with Spotify and requested that they limit the number of their users who could listen to her latest songs. They first wanted only paid users of Spotify (the people who pay to not be able to hear any advertisements) for the right to listen to her music. Then, they wanted only customers from Europe who Taylor Swift is trying to create a following in order to hear her latest songs. Spotify disagreed, and she took her music from the service.
What are the responsibilities of Spotify Product Managers do?
As a manager of products, whenever a vendor isn’t able to supply you with the components you require, then you’ve got a problem with your hands. Evidently, Taylor Swift provides a product that Spotify users love. Since she is no longer willing to offer that product, it puts Spotify as well as its managers of product in an awkward situation that’s unlikely to appear well on their resumes of product managers. If they fail to do anything that isn’t done, there’s an excellent chance that some of their customers might leave to other companies that do include Taylor Swift products.
What product managers be forced to recognize is that what customers really desire is music that is similar to Taylor Swift. If they don’t get the exact thing, is there a way to get something that is similar? This is the reason why playlists come with the assistance of Spotify’s product managers. Because users leave it to Spotify to decide which song they listen to and the idea of playlists was conceived. Subscribers can make playlists that are based around an artist or a subject, and Spotify chooses the sequence of songs that match the playlist.
Since Spotify is no longer able to offer Taylor Swift songs as a component of the subscriber’s playlist choices, product managers will be forced to come up with new ideas. They’ve already begun doing this. Spotify has released playlists like “A Little Playlist Poetry for Taylor Swift” and “What to Play While Taylor’s Away” with songs by Sam Hunt and Ed Sheeran to help Swift’s fans to cope. I’d suggest the Spotify product managers go to find a performer that sounds like Taylor Swift and have that performer record music covers that are Taylor Swift’s (legally) in order to use these songs or even create new ones in cases where they’ve had the need to take Taylor’s tracks. What a fantastic chance for an artist who isn’t well-known!
What does all Of This Mean For You?
Product managers are in a position where we’re in the hands of the suppliers we use to create our product. If they do not provide us with the materials we require to build our product; it’s going to have an enormous impact on the kind of product we can offer and the number of products we are able to offer our customers. It appears that Spotify product managers are faced with the same situation that is no aspect of their task description due to the fact that music producer Taylor Swift has decided to take the entire catalog of music from her Spotify service.
What this means for the Spotify management team is, if their customers have playlists with Taylor Swift songs, they aren’t capable of hearing the songs they want to hear. This means that Spotify product managers are likely to need to find alternatives. This could provide a way for the product managers to locate someone who resembles Taylor Swift to create songs to fill in the gaps.
If a vendor is not able or unwilling to supply us with the elements we require to make our product, then a product manager needs to decide to take action. We do not intend to cease providing our product. We must instead look for alternatives to the one which is no longer in stock. This is precisely what Spotify product managers have to do. It appears that they’re already taking steps to accomplish this and may be able to develop a service that will work with no Taylor Swift being a part of it.
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