Though Spotify never shared official numbers, it’s likely that Car Thing underperformed or was just not worth continued investment in today’s tighter economic market.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Amazon has historically operated audiobook marketplace Audible as a separate entity, unconnected to the retailer’s broader goals and ambitions. Today, that’s changing a bit with the launch of a test that will allow Audible users to receive recommendations about what to listen to next based on their Prime Video viewing behavior. The company says this […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Diddo is an API for streaming services and other platforms to integrate shoppable videos, enabling consumers to buy their favorite characters’ clothing and accessories directly on their screens. The company announced Wednesday that it raised $2.8 million in seed funding.
Diddo was founded in late 2022 by Rishi Nair, Ryan Sullivan and Pamela Chen, and started as a Google Chrome extension built for Nair’s and Sullivan’s mothers who are “Selling Sunset” fans and wanted to dress like their favorite reality TV stars. Now, the company has developed an API that uses proprietary computer vision AI technology to identify products in TV shows and movies. The AI also pulls comparable products so shoppers can buy lower-priced dupes if, for instance, Kim Kardashian’s $700 Balenciaga T-shirt is outside of their price range.
The funding round was led by Link Ventures, with participation from Neo, Dante D’Angelo (Valentino), Erica Lockheimer (LinkedIn), Camille Ricketts (ex-CMO of Notion), an unnamed Disney exec and Scott Forstall, who is known for leading the Apple team that created iOS, among others.
The new capital will support product development and expand the company’s eight-person team. The company recently hired Rob Sussman (also a Diddo investor) as COO; he’s the former Sundance CFO and executive vice president of MGM+ (formerly Epix).
Diddo has signed deals with 12 companies so far, including Dailymotion, Mux, the Highlights App, social sports platform PlayersOnly, film and TV collective The Big Picture, fashion brand Blair New York and more. The company also revealed that it’s actively in talks with Hulu and another streaming giant.
Diddo says its API stands out from competitors due to its computer vision technology, which sits within a platform’s video player.
“We’re the only company that’s doing it so far,” Nair told TechCrunch. “These companies don’t have to send their video outside of their ecosystem. That’s a huge deal because all these media companies [think] it’s a non-starter if they have to send their video outside the API to run the computer vision. So, what we’ve been able to figure out is setting our computer vision within their video ecosystem so that we can go fully from video ingestion to commerce capabilities without leaving.”
One of the challenges about this, however, is that running computer vision over a video that is being watched by millions of users simultaneously is “incredibly tolling on the end user’s device,” Nair said. “In order to avoid this issue, we have decided to build out the product with a time-stamped approach to documenting the products. By this, we run the computer vision once over the video, where it identifies all of the products found within the content and puts them in a time-stamped database. Because the products in on-demand content do not change, we only need to run it one time on our side and require nothing from the streamer or the end user.”
Additionally, no QR codes are required (like Peacock’s Must ShopTV feature), and products are not presented as intrusive advertisements (see Roku’s shoppable ads), so users aren’t removed from the viewing experience.
With Diddo, people can view all items in an interactive storefront after the episode has finished. They then complete the purchase through a native checkout capability, which includes integrations with major e-commerce services, such as Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and Salesforce Cloud. Diddo also collects user data on which products people are interested in to recommend similar items to them in the future.
Diddo takes a 4% to 6% fee on all purchases made on the platform.
The recent funding round follows Paramount’s partnership with AI-powered shoppable technology Shopsense AI. The streamer debuted its new mobile shopping experience on April 7. Last week, Amazon’s Prime Video and Freevee released a free, ad-supported channel for shoppable livestreams.
Truth Social, the social media platform owned by Donald Trump’s media company, has announced plans to launch a live TV streaming platform. The platform will focus on “news networks” and “religious channels,” along with “other content that has been cancelled, is at risk of cancellation, or is being suppressed on other platforms and services,” according to a press release. The service will also feature “family-friendly” content, including films and documentaries.
The streaming service will launch in three phases. The company first plans to introduce Truth Social’s CDN (content delivery network) for streaming to the Truth Social app for Android, iOS and the web. Next, Truth Social plans to release over-the-top (“OTT”) streaming apps for phones, tablets and other devices. The last phase of the rollout involves the launch of a streaming app for TVs.
The Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) says it has tested the streaming service on its web and iOS platforms for six months and has “finished the research and development phase.”
“We’re excited to move forward with the next big phase for Truth Social,” said TMTG CEO Devin Nunes in the press release. “With our streaming content, we aim to provide a permanent home for high-quality news and entertainment that face discrimination by other channels and content delivery services.”
The announcement comes as Elon Musk’s X has been focused on trying to turn the social media site into a free-speech “video-first” platform. The social network currently features an original show hosted by former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and another by former Fox Sports host Jim Rome. Last month, Musk canceled a talkshow deal with former CNN anchor Don Lemon after the multibillionaire was interviewed for the first episode of the show.
Truth Social went public last month after shareholders approved a merger of TMTG and Digital World Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The company’s stock slumped this week after it said it would sell more shares to raise cash. Although the company is worth billions of dollars, TMTG is struggling to make money: It reportedly had a net loss of around $49 million in 2023 and made just under $4 million in revenue.
Spotify announced on Tuesday that it’s bringing its free audiobooks perk to Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. Users in these markets will be able to access 15 hours of free monthly audiobook listening time. Spotify also announced that it’s expanding its audiobooks catalog from 200,000 to 250,000 titles. The perk is already available in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
The expansion comes two months after Spotify said its audiobooks service is the second-largest audiobook provider behind Amazon-owned Audible. Spotify says users have listened to more than 150,000 titles since the free service’s launch last November.
Audiobooks can be found in the Home feed of the Spotify app or via the search tab. Any audiobook marked as “Included in Premium” can be listened to with a Spotify Premium subscription. You can track your listening hours in the settings of your Spotify app. If you run out of listening hours, you can purchase additional 10-hour allocations for CAD $14.99, IRE €12.99 and NZD $19.99.
Spotify recently launched a $9.99 per month plan that allows its free users to access its audiobooks collection in the U.S. The plan, which includes 15 hours of listening, gives Spotify a way to compete with Audible by targeting users who aren’t as interested in its music service. While Audible’s $14.95 per month subscription gives users one credit to buy a title, Spotify’s $9.99 plan allows users to listen to 15 hours across its catalog, which is often enough time to listen to more than one audiobook.
In the wake of Universal Music Group’s (UMG) public spat with TikTok, which saw the label pulling its full catalog from the video app earlier this year, the company is doubling down on its deal with Spotify. On Thursday, UMG announced an expansion of its strategic relationship with the streaming music service that will focus on “music discovery and social interaction” as well as enhanced fan experiences. The addition of music videos is included among these new features in the U.S.
Spotify recently announced its plans to support music videos, saying in March it would test the option in beta in 11 select markets — which, at the time, didn’t include the U.S. Instead, the feature was to be supported in Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden and the U.K., the company said.
With the UMG deal, U.S. users will also have the option of watching music videos instead of just streaming audio. The companies didn’t state what portion of UMG’s catalog would be offered as videos, nor did it name specific high-profile artists whose videos would be included.
Universal Music Publishing Group, however, includes a number of popular artists like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, SZA, Drake, Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Adele and others. That catalog of 4 million songs was also pulled from TikTok after UMG failed to renew its agreement with the video app.
To watch videos, Spotify users can access a new “Switch to Video” option from the app’s Now Playing Screen. Plus, if you rotate your phone to landscape mode, you can watch the video full-screen.
As a part of the new agreement, Spotify will introduce new promotional and social features to help artists generate excitement around their new releases. For instance, UMG artists will be able to share teasers of upcoming songs and users will be able to pre-save music before a new release.
The companies will explore other collaborations on features over time, with further details still to come, UMG said in an announcement.
“UMG has consistently been a progressive partner on behalf of their artists and songwriters, contributing to our product development efforts of experimental tools and adopting them early to help artists stand out,” said Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, in a statement. “The forthcoming features will put more power in the hands of artists and their teams to help them authentically express themselves, efficiently promote their work, and better monetize their art,” he added.
The timing of the deal, of course, is notable given the drama around TikTok. In addition to facing a possible U.S. ban, the short-form video app and UMG were unable to come to an agreement over TikTok’s use of UMG’s music. As a result, TikTok had to remove some 3 million songs owned or distributed by UMG by January 31, 2024. Later, it also had to remove more songs that contained compositions controlled by UMG — that is, songs written or co-written by a songwriter signed to Universal Music Publishing Group.
By partnering with Spotify, UMG still has a way to promote its music to fans, even if its artists lose the ability to market themselves on TikTok. In previous years, the loss of UMG’s music would have been a larger blow to TikTok, but given the app’s move away from lip-syncing and dancing videos to more vlogs and long-form content, not to mention its controversial e-commerce push, the impact may not be as profound.
Google is shutting down its Podcasts app in the U.S. in a matter of days. The company has begun warning the app’s users they will need to migrate their subscriptions to YouTube Music by April 2 to follow and stream their favorite shows going forward. Users who don’t make the move immediately will still have additional time to migrate, but will no longer be able to stream from the Podcasts app directly after this date.
The Google Podcasts app, installed over 500 million times on Android devices globally, for over half a decade has offered a simple and streamlined interface for discovering, following and listening to podcasts, as well as tools to add podcasts by RSS feed. Unfortunately for fans of the app, the tech giant said last September it would begin to wind down the Podcasts app in early 2024 as part of its broader plan to centralize its audio services under YouTube.
In 2020, YouTube Music offered a similar transition strategy to move music listeners away from Google Play Music ahead of its shutdown that same year. However, the Google Podcasts app continued to be maintained for years because YouTube Music wasn’t ready to support podcasts until more recently. By the end of 2023, YouTube Music was able to support podcasts globally, and, by February, they had the ability to upload their RSS feeds, too.
The move to shift podcasting over to YouTube could help Google become a bigger player in the space, not only by combining its efforts and sharpening its focus, but also because interest in video podcasts — which were already popular on YouTube — is on the rise. This week, for example, Spotify forged a deal with Universal Music Group (UMG) to bring video podcasts to U.S. users of its streaming app after earlier in March announcing tests of video podcasts in 11 other markets around the world.
Bleeping Computer was the first to notice the shutdown date for Google Podcasts in the U.S., and a support page on Google’s site confirms that users in the U.S. will only be able to use the Podcasts app through the end of March 2024. For those who miss the in-app pop-ups, Google will offer users additional time to save their subscriptions by allowing them to use the app’s export feature through July 2024.
Google did not immediately return a request for comment, but after publication did respond to say that while it was still “tracking towards” the April 2 timeline for the U.S., it has not shared a timeline for the rest of the world yet.
From its earlier statements, though, the plan is to discontinue Google Podcasts globally in 2024.
Updated, 3/29/24, 5:00 PM ET with Google comment.
Founded in 2017, Atoms Lanka Solutions is a provider of IT consulting and software development services. Throughout the company’s history, we have worked with over 160 customers from 5+ countries..
