For its latest report, Data to Date: the Rapid Rise of Social and Streaming, the analyst firm tracked plays across YouTube, Vevo, Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, Vimeo and (for the first time) Pandora to arrive at the figure.
It said: ‘Streaming is fast becoming the primary way we consume music, whether that be through the more interactive on-demand services, algorithmically-driven lean-back experiences, the increasingly popular format of human curation and playlists…
‘The number of online plays in just the first six months of the year far exceeds what we tracked in all of 2014, even before the addition of Pandora’s data.’
The report also claimed that music-related social media interaction is ‘growing like a weed’, with 14 billion new followers, page likes and stations added in the first half of the year. This amounts to more than three quarters of the total from last year.
Next Big Sound pointed to Instagram in particular, saying there had been an explosion of activity on the platform with more than 280 million new followers for artists tracked in the first half of 2015 - close to six times the activity for the whole of last year.
Elsewhere, the analyst said it's tracked 4.9 billion monthly plays on SoundCloud this year, nearly double the 2.5 billion it tracked this time last year.
However, it added that future growth could be dependent on the platform’s ability to strike deals with rightsholders and the launch of its rumoured subscription service.
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It said: ‘Streaming is fast becoming the primary way we consume music, whether that be through the more interactive on-demand services, algorithmically-driven lean-back experiences, the increasingly popular format of human curation and playlists…
‘The number of online plays in just the first six months of the year far exceeds what we tracked in all of 2014, even before the addition of Pandora’s data.’
The report also claimed that music-related social media interaction is ‘growing like a weed’, with 14 billion new followers, page likes and stations added in the first half of the year. This amounts to more than three quarters of the total from last year.
Next Big Sound pointed to Instagram in particular, saying there had been an explosion of activity on the platform with more than 280 million new followers for artists tracked in the first half of 2015 - close to six times the activity for the whole of last year.
Elsewhere, the analyst said it's tracked 4.9 billion monthly plays on SoundCloud this year, nearly double the 2.5 billion it tracked this time last year.
However, it added that future growth could be dependent on the platform’s ability to strike deals with rightsholders and the launch of its rumoured subscription service.
M magazine is now on Instagram. Find us here: https://instagram.com/m_magazineprs/
