{"id":43809,"date":"2023-10-20T15:31:19","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/spotify-appoints-first-local-employee-to-fuel-expansion-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:31:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:31:19","slug":"spotify-appoints-first-local-employee-to-fuel-expansion-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/spotify-appoints-first-local-employee-to-fuel-expansion-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify appoints first local employee to fuel expansion – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digital music-streaming service Spotify has appointed former Google executive Kate Vale as its first Australian employee, as the company continues its rapid expansion throughout the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Spotify was founded in Sweden by Daniel Ek, former chief technology officer of kids’ browser game Stardoll, and Martin Lorentzon, co-founder of internet marketing company TradeDoubler.<\/p>\n

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The company, which launched in 2006 and is now based in United Kingdom, offers streaming of selected music from a range of record labels including Sony, EMI and Warner Music Group.<\/p>\n

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Spotify charges a low monthly fee for unlimited access to a catalogue of 15 million songs. The application was launched for public access in October 2008, enjoying instant popularity.<\/p>\n

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In February 2010, Spotify received a small investment from The Founder Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm led by Facebook founding president Sean Parker.<\/p>\n

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In June this year, it was reported that Spotify had secured an additional $100 million in funding, which it planned to use for its launch into the United States.<\/p>\n

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In addition to the US, the Spotify service is available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

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Now Australia has been added to the list.<\/p>\n

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Yesterday, StartupSmart received an email from Spotify PR manager Sally Whatley confirming the company has appointed former Google executive Kate Vale as its first Australian employee.<\/p>\n

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According to Vale’s LinkedIn profile, Vale is already in place as sales director for Australia and New Zealand, and is looking to recruit more sales staff.<\/p>\n

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Value was previously head of YouTube in Australia and New Zealand, and head of sales and operations at Google Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

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She is also listed on LinkedIn as a director at Loopster Media, which helps brands manage their Facebook profiles.<\/p>\n

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Whatley says Spotify is in the process of recruiting staff to form Vale’s team, although no other details were given.<\/p>\n

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“Spotify’s long-term aim is to be available in every country. We don’t have any news to share regarding a launch in Australia at this stage, but watch this space,” she said.<\/p>\n

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The company is believed to be negotiating deals with carriers and ISPs this month.<\/p>\n

As Spotify continues to enter new markets, suggestions have been raised about how the company will maintain the interest of its growing user base.<\/p>\n

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Spotify says it will unveil its “latest major development” at a conference on November 30 as it heads in a “new direction”, with reports suggesting a video-streaming service is on the cards.<\/p>\n

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“Spotify might be planning to launch a video-streaming service to rival the music video traffic currently being lapped up by YouTube,” wrote UK gadget news site Electricpig.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, tech blog VentureBeat predicts the launch of a Spotify music store, “with plenty of integration on Facebook”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digital music-streaming service Spotify has appointed former Google executive Kate Vale as its first Australian employee, as the company continues<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}