TechCrunch
Spotify Launches In Taiwan, Argentina, Greece and Turkey
Spotify has launched in Argentina, Greece, Turkey and Taiwan, bringing its streaming music platform to a total of 32 countries.
The heart of the Mandopop (Mandarin pop) industry, Taiwan marks the latest step in Spotify’s Asia expansion, which began in April when the service premiered in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Desktop streaming is free in Taiwan and premium service, which allows users access the platform on their mobile devices or smart TVs, is NT$149 (about $5), or half of the $9.99 that users in the U.S. pay.
Despite its lower pricing in Asia, Spotify faces strong competition from several local players, including KKBOX, which has 10 million users and already boosts strong ties to Mandopop labels. KKBOX has diversified its product offerings beyond streaming music by hosting live events on its platform that allow users to listen along as celebrities select tracks and chat via text, organizing an annual KKBOX Digital Music Awards and publishing a print magazine with profiles of Mandopop stars.
In Argentina, Greece and Turkey, Spotify will compete with Deezer. The streaming music service launched in Turkey earlier this month and now operates in 182 countries.
EBay Bridges Online And High Street With Click & Collect Service In The UK, And eBay Now Goes Abroad
E-commerce giant eBay today made its latest moves to blur the lines between online and offline commerce, and it’s chosen the UK to do it: it launched a new “Click & Collect” service, where shoppers can buy goods from eBay online and then select a physical retail location in the UK where they can be delivered. On top of this, eBay said it will be bringing its same-day delivery option, eBay Now, to the UK, marking the its first push outside of the U.S. for the service.
“I’m pleased to share that our eBay Now service is coming to Europe, starting with London next year,” eBay president Devin Wenig announced in a presentation in London today.
This is eBay’s first commercial trial for Click & Collect, and it will be UK-only for now. eBay has been working on it for about a year already, and it will operate on two levels: for large retailers who have physical stores and also sell on eBay, they can now give users the option to pick up goods in those stores instead of having them delivered. For smaller eBay merchants, eBay has struck a deal with the Argos chain of stores for home goods for users to get their ordered goods delivered there.
The Argos deal will cover, at first, 150 UK stores and some 50 eBay merchants, Wenig said. The idea is that this will give consumers who do not want to buy certain items with delayed delivery more convenience in getting those goods more instantly.
Meanwhile, it makes sense for eBay to expand eBay Now to international markets, which make up some 64% of the company’s total revenues in its marketplace division.
Up to today, eBay Now has been growing only in the U.S., first opening for business in San Francisco in August 2012. It now works in a few other cities, including Chicago, Dallas, and the wider New York and Bay Area regions. And eBay has also expanded eBay Now from a mobile-only product to one that also can be used on the desktop.
While eBay Now is a competitor against the likes of Amazon Prime and (to a lesser extent) Google Shopping Express, Click & Collect is more like the deliver locker services that these companies have rolled out. Amazon Locker is live in the UK, while Google has yet to extend its BufferBox-fuelled service outside of the U.S. and Canada.
With Click & Collect, what’s not clear is whether those merchants are also working with Argos for the actual fulfilment of those orders. (In other words, if you buy a blender with an eBay merchant, does that merchant then ship the blender to Argos, or is it deducted from inventory at that Argos location? We’re reaching out to ask.)
In any case, eBay is pitching it as a game changer for how merchants will be able to offer consumers goods:
“This new way to shop — with different online merchants and collection at convenient locations — could create immense opportunities for sellers,” said Wenig today.
The move is an interesting one both for eBay and for the physical stores with which it will partner.
For eBay it brings the company closer to where most people are still spending the vast majority of their money. For example, stats out from the U.S. Census Bureau in August note that in Q2 of this year $64.8 billion was spent in e-commerce. But total retail sales were $1,126.2 billion. In other words, only 5.75% of retail sales in the U.S., one of the bigger e-commerce markets, are online.
But for brick-and-mortar retailers, the longer-term writing is on the wall. Online continues to grow faster than offline (5% versus 1%, says the USCB), and at a time when many physical retailers are seeing stagnant growth or even declines in sales, it’s important for brick-and-mortar companies to continue embracing avenues like the Internet to connect with users.
This is, by far, not eBay’s first move to connect better with the high street. PayPal’s here mobile payment solution puts eBay right at the point of sale for transactions with smaller merchants. And eBay has also created a touchscreen store window for Kate Spade Saturday to browse items, and check-in and QR Code services to quickly check for and buy items online.
I’m speaking directly to Wenig shortly and will update this story with more after that.
Line Adds Vine-Style Clip Maker & Video Calling To Its Mobile Messaging Platform
The largest mobile messaging apps are increasingly social platforms in their own right. More evidence of that today as NHN Japan Corporation‘s Line – which had around 200 million registered users at the last count — has added yet another feature to its platform play in a v3.9.0 update to its iPhone app (Android users will get the update “in future”).
Snap Movie allows for Vine-style short video sharing, which gives Line users yet another way to communicate with each other without having to leave its social, entertainment playground.
Or, as Line puts it:
Now LINE users can participate in the global trend of sharing their own original video clip and BGM arrangements.
As with Twitter-owned Vine, Snap Movie lets iPhone users of Line create a short video for sharing that’s composed or one or more scenes by recording footage by holding their finger down on the screen. Line’s videos have a little more flexibility in length than Vine’s, which caps footage at six seconds and ties them into an automatic loop. Line Snap Movie videos can be between four and 10 seconds long.
Line also lets users add background music (that’s BGM in Line-speak) to accompany their footage. Or it lets users stick with the plain recorded audio. Snap Movies can be posted in Line chatrooms, to individual or group chats, to your Line home, or saved to your phone (but the latter option appears to only be available after you’ve posted the video somewhere within Line first).
Here’s a quick 10-second test video I shot using the new feature, adding BGM (‘Where is my cookie’) for comic effect:
The v3.9.0 update also adds a video calls feature to Line’s iPhone app — bringing it in line with rival messaging apps that were already offering video calling, such as WeChat and Viber (and indeed Apple’s own FaceTime iMessage offering).
Other new features in the updated Line iPhone app include a collaborative group photo album feature; privacy post tweaks so users can set the privacy level of individual Line Home posts; the ability to delete users from blocked/hidden lists; and also iOS 7 updates.
IndieGameStand Launches Online Store And Steam Competitor With Democratized Access For All Indie Devs
Buying indie games online can be a hit-or-miss experience, often involving some hunting, but IndieGameStand has just launched a new centralized online store where you should be able to access just about anything you want to, given some time. Initially, IndieGameStand started off as a sort of flash secret sale club for indie gaming software, offering a specific title at any given time on a “pay what you want” model.
Now, it’s offering a full-fledged store, similar to Steam, but with a very different underlying mechanic and guiding philosophy. Steam has its Greenlight program, which makes indie titles vie with one another and essentially prove marketability before they get offered on its storefront, but IndieGameStand tells Escapist it will offer up its platform to any and all indie devs who want to participate. The entire process, from setting up an account to submitting games to getting them listed, can all happen with in single day.
IndieGameStand co-founder Mike Gnade told Escapist that their platform supports games at either the extreme alpha stage, or in ready-to-ship condition, and there’s another difference, too: Setting sale prices and durations are completely at the discretion of developers, which means that while the company itself isn’t planning to do broad, sweeping Steam-style sales, groups of developers could theoretically coordinate and offer discounts at the same time to achieve the same effect.
The IndieGameStand will still offer “pay what you want” deals, which pay 70 percent to developers, as well as 10 percent to a charity of the developer’s choosing and 20 percent to IGS itself, but the new store has a slightly different split, with 75 percent paid to devs and 25 percent paid to IGS. Steam and GOG both offer 70 percent to devs, while the Humble Store, which doesn’t actually have a consolidated storefront, offers a best-in-class 95 percent to devs, according to Fez’s Phil Fish.
That said, there is a launch sale that’s 14 titles strong going on right now, to celebrate the store’s debut. All told, there are 94 different games on IndieGameStand at launch, including celebrated recent indie hits like Proteus. If you’re looking for an indie gaming fix, you could always try Steam or GOG, but IndieGameStand is a great new option that will probably draw a lot of top-notch content.
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