I just arrived to this article in The Telegraph where an executive from Universal Music, discloses a couple of facts from Spotify which I find quite interesting.
First, Spotify has two forms of paying to the record labels for the music royalties:
Secondly, the article gives information about the break-even point for Spotify. Spotify needs around a 10% of the total users to be subscribed to the premium service to start earning money…
And last but not least, that break-even has been reached everywhere except in Spain and UK (funny enough, those places where the “per stream” policy prevails). The article also mentions that it is being tough in these countries, due to the huge acceptance Spotify has had… As they say: “it was a more difficult task to convert 10 per cent of a much larger number into subscribers”, and that is the reason why it is so difficult to get invitations lately.
I forgot to share here in the blog some pictures I took on January 8th, when it snowed in Madrid. I was lucky enough to take a flight that night which was able to land in Madrid airport. It took quite a long time till we got into the terminal, but it was really worth waiting for this view of my aircraft and some others in front of T-4.
Algunas fotos de la Cabalgata de Reyes más antigua de Europa, la de Alcoy. =) Y con esto, ya pasamos página a la Navidad… hasta el año que viene. 😉
Els "negres" (pajes) cargando una escalera para subir los regalos por los balcones
Baltasar en su camello
Melchor saludando a sus "fans"
Pink Taxi, by Brainless Angel
A taxi company has started a new service for their female customers in Barcelona: the “only for women” taxi. There are similar services in other cities in the world. You can read more about this in this link (in Spanish), from where I extracted this paragraph:
Pero la idea ya está implantada. Sin marcha atrás. Begoña Torres, de 50 años, una taxista (…), planteó la idea del vehículo rosa a su empresa, Servitaxi. Lo hizo a principios de diciembre y a finales de mes, las 16 conductoras de la plantilla (con más de 300 socios, el resto hombres) se pusieron manos a la obra. El servicio sólo funciona por teléfono. El número es diferente del genérico del radio taxi. Y las usuarias (…) lo solicitan de día y de noche.
But the idea is already in place. Without going back. Begoña Torres, 50, a taxi driver (…), raised the idea of pink vehicle to her company, Servitaxi. She did it in early December and end of the month, the 16 female drivers in the workforce (more than 300 members, the rest men) were put to work. The service only works over the phone. The number is different from generic radio taxi. And the users (…) request it day and night.
What really surprises me is the fact that they launched this new business in just 1 month, and thanks to an employee suggestion. It’s just great that a company like this, offering a commodity service like people transportation, is able to innovate in such a short time. Ok, it is a service, which is easier to put into the market, but still they had tons of things to do:
The latter is the most important one and the one which normally takes longer in most of the companies. But Servitaxi has started commercializing the idea just 1 month after the idea generation.
Chapeau for Servitaxi! (by the way, they could change the web slightly ;))
