Research; Spotify

Spotify 

What is it; Spotify is an online music, podcast and video streaming website

Founded; Founded on the 23^rd of April 2006 with its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden

Founders; Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon

Spotify is one of the leading websites being available in most of Euroope and America, Asutrailia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. With Spotify’s content available to millions of people the service is available on most modern devices including macOS, Windows and Linux computers as well as smartphones and tablets.

Users can browse Spotify for specific artists, playlists, albums, genres and playlists to find the type of music they like but also they can create their own playlists of their favourite music to keep it all in one place. Bsut they aren’t limited to this, users can also follow others playlists to keep updated with new music and get to see new genres they perhaps wouldn’t have listened to.

With over 50 million paying subscribers and 100 million monthly active users (As of March

2017), Spotify makes a large amount of profit but unlike with physical or downloadable sales Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artists' streams as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. They distribute approximately 70% of total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Spotify have used web technologies to their advantage, having market a service that is 100% online allows them to regularly update their website and make alterations without having to alter offline services. Also by having a online service everything is connected and linked so it's easier for the users to find everything about the website. 

Layouts;

 Spotify's general layout is clear and and has a user-friendly interface with playlists, songs and browser's on a side panel. Having a side navigation bar allows users to navigate easily through the website, as well as using the search tool at the top of the site. Having the play bar at the bottom is a consistent tool used on Spotify, to allow the user to pick and choose what they're listening to despite what page their on. What l like about Spotify is how clear they display their content, spacing out the information so you can easily identify what you're looking for. Also by allowing users to follow their friends and celebrities, Spotify has allowed them to explore new music genres and see what everyone else is listening to by following their playlists. This is a feature l think is unique about Spotify as their combining streaming with social media and making their site appear to be more social.

Spotify's website generally has less content because all the streaming content is on their app for their users and the website is used primarily for information. Like other streaming websites Spotify's site is minimal but highly visual, using album covers and artists to promote the variety they have on their service. Therefore, information is given in either few words or short sentences to fit their minimalist theme, this works well because they have used panels to split up their information and so the user can recognise that each panel has a slightly different topic. 

Spotify don't have a complex navigation, with only six pages it makes the users experience easier because everything you need to know is clearly labelled and detailed on the site.