Could Apple’s iRadio Become Big Data’s Big Debut In Music?
Apple’s WWDC 2013 developer conference is all set for next week, and rumors about what the company is launching are abundant. Many have taken iDevices off the list of expected announcements, which leaves the much rumored streaming music subscription service front and center.
According to earlier reports, Apple will be unveiling iRadio, a new streaming music service for iTunes. Rumors for the big reveal were fueled when news surfaced that Apple signed a licensing deal with Warner Music Group for rights to its recorded music and music publishing for 10 times the amount Pandora is paying major music publishers. Apple’s deal with Warner could possibly alter publishing deals, much like Apple did with ebooks for the publishing industry.
Should Apple in fact launch a music subscription service, it will be competing with a maturing market currently dominated by Pandora and Spotify, amongst others. As consumer services become more popular, they also have to become more personalized in order to increase value to end users. If Apple wants to stand out in a very crowded market, it will need to take full advantage of data analytics to provide the best user experience possible. iTunes is synonymous with mobile music, and to lose out on a highly personalized streaming experience would be a massive missed opportunity for the iPod maker.
Joining Kristin Feledy in this morning’s Live NewsDesk Show is Wikibon Principal Research Contributor Jeff Kelly for his Breaking analysis on how Big Data plays a huge role in streaming services.
“Underneath the covers [with] any kind of streaming music service, the idea is to provide personalized content – personalized music – to the listener. In order to do that, most of these streaming services use some form of analytics underneath the covers to analyze the user’s preferences, the types of songs or genres they are interested in. Depending on the data sources they have access to, it could also include preferences for other types of content that might relate to the type of music that they would like,” Kelly stated.
He also explained that Big Data plays a huge role in delivering targeted ads to users. Apple’s iRadio is said to be a free ad-supported service so knowing what listeners are interested in will enable the company to deliver what users want while also making advertisers happy.
For more of Kelly’s Breaking Analysis on how Big Data plays a role in music streaming services, checkout the NewsDesk video below:
photo credit: Buxtonwolf via photopin cc
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