Yahoo enters into partnership with online music service Spotify

This was announced by the two companies on Tuesday evening (local time). Spotify originates from Sweden and has also been available in Switzerland since November 2011. However, in this country, registration with the music service is only possible with a Facebook account. The service offers virtually unlimited access to music. Spotify users can thus legally access around 15 million music tracks without having to buy each track individually. The basic version is free and ad-financed. For 6.45 francs per month, there is unlimited, ad-free access from the computer, and for 12.95 francs also from the smartphone. Users can also download individual titles to their computers. 10 downloads cost 15.95, 100 music tracks 99.95 francs.
 
Spotify has more than ten million users worldwide to date. Yahoo reaches around 700 million people a month - that's just under half of Internet users. "As Yahoo's global music partner, we can reach a massive listenership," said Spotify founder Daniel Ek. Yahoo interim chief Ross Levinsohn praised Spotify as "revolutionizing the music business." Yahoo, which was very successful as a search engine and Internet portal in the early days of the worldwide web, is currently struggling to keep up with Internet giant Google and new players like social network Facebook.
 
It is currently trying to transform itself into an online platform for digital content. Among other things, Yahoo will develop an application for Spotify that will provide users with more information about the artists. The two companies have not yet announced when exactly the music service will be available on Yahoo. (sda)