My Wishlist For Spotify's"New Direction" Announcement

Spotify announced today that that there will be a global press conference on November 30 with the theme "New Direction". What could that new direction be? Here a wishlist.

1. Up. As in Integrated cloud storage for your own library or library "matching". This would be fantastic and give iTunes Match a major headache. It would also allow Spotify to open up more catalog in more territories and/or fill the gaps from your own local library. Tracks that you have locally that are not available because of territory restrictions in Spotify's agreements, could be matched and made available to you based on your prior "ownership". While I love Spotify this is something they need to implement soon to keep ahead of iTubes and iCloud. I know iCloud doesn't technically "stream" but that's just semantics. It caches and plays a progressive download until that track is finished or you navigate away. Spotify is basically a bit torrent client playing up tracks from many points across the internet. That's what gives it such great performance - and is also why you won't see a browser-based Spotify. (unless some engineers out there have tips on how HTML5, Facebook and Spotify can fit together to make a torrent client)  Likelihood: 3/5

2. Sideways. As in adding video. And not just music videos across the board, but branded artist pages with exclusive preview content. The seeds have been planted as you can see here with this exclusive video from Björk. This becomes a great way for artists to lift themselves above the chatter and get more plays, as well as leveraging the massive social connection via Facebook. This would also make display adverts a new source of revenue in the free service (powered by Facebook?). That is something that's hard to do when people or only listening and not watching. Of course - this assumes they have it all cleared with the labels and publishers. Likelihood: 4/5


3. Inside. Into the arenas in partnership with Live Nation or or other tour promoters. This would fit nicely into the brand page concept and create new revenue streams.
Imagine the revenues one could pull in by selling overflow remote viewing of sold-out performances to premium subscribers. It's a big step in development so I give it a low likelihood but the future is not too far away for this one to become a reality. Partner it up with that great Facebook integration and the sky's the limit. (I have a couple of other tricks to add onto this one that would give Facebook a wet dream but I'm keeping those to myself). Likelihood: 2/5


4. In-dash. What would make sense, given all of the effort they've shown with home electronics integration with Sonos, Philips and others, is some automotive partnerships. Spotify in-dash would be a super next step at this point. Likelihood: 4/5


5. South. A geographic direction and this fits more directly into the concept of a clever press event tagline. Will Spotify break the news on new partnerships in LAM? América Móvil has ca 120 million subs across Argentina, Brazil and Mexico and Spotify has been looking for people to do development in the region. A very music hungry market but a tough nut to crack and make profitable. Likelihood: 2.5/5


6. West. Many have speculated that movies and TV series could be the next thing on the agenda but I doubt it. I could be wrong but Spotify isn't geared up for that yet and, unless they have something brewing with Facebook, I see it being a long shot. It is, indeed, a direction they need to go eventually but the press conference is being held in New York. To me that still means music related. If had been planned for L.A. I would believe it more. Likelihood: 2/5

7. 90° turn. Yup. The most obvious play on the term "new direction" would be a 90 degree spin on the interface. Landscape mode is something that has been sorely lacking for way too long now. While hardly worthy of a press event by itself, a set of dedicated apps for iPad and Android tablets with the introduction of landscape mode across all apps would be worth a hallelujah chorus. Never underestimate the value of hyping small steps to keep your market presence chugging along. They could always call the new version "Spotify-S" Likelihood: 4.5/5