Spotify has announced today that they have reached their first major milestone, one million paying customers.
Says the streaming music company:
It seems like only yesterday we were hatching ideas for a new music service in a tiny office-cum-apartment with a broken coffee machine, and the party we threw having reached one million users almost two years ago today was one to remember.
So it’s with a sense of real pride and excitement that we can announce a new milestone today, having welcomed our millionth paying subscriber to the service. It’s a testament to our fantastic users who continue to support us and spread the Spotify word, either by telling friends or sharing some of the 200 million playlists that you’ve put together so far.
From everyone at Spotify, we’d like to give you all massive thanks. We’ll continue to focus on providing you with the best music service possible, and look forward to adding even more cool new features over the coming months. What’s really exciting is that this is only the beginning.
Overall, the company has 7 million active users and over 10 million registered users.
Spotify is aiming for a U.S. launch soon, and has reportedly signed deals with EMI and Sony Music. The service is allegedly close to signing a licensing deal with Universal Music Group, the largest label in the world.
Result for: new features
Mike Beltzner, the Director of Firefox has said today that release candidates (RC) for Firefox 4 will be available at the beginning of 2011.
Beta 7 of the new browser is set for release in the next week.
Mozilla says Beta 7 will be a “code freeze” for the browser, meaning that new features can no longer be added afterwards.
After b7, the browser will be delivered to add-on developers.
Says Beltzner:
“As those who have been tracking our nightly builds know, great things are happening with Firefox 4. The user interface changes are converging, the graphics and layout features are wrapping up, and recently the JavaScript engine was dramatically improved. The result is a fast, capable Firefox that provides better speed and responsiveness for web applications and users. Completing this work is taking longer than initial estimates indicated as we track down regressions and sources of instability. As part of our commitment to beta users, we will not ship software before it is ready.
Development on Firefox 4 has not slowed down and strong progress is being made daily. However, based on the delays in completing the “feature complete” Beta 7 milestone against which our Add-on developers and third-party software developers can develop, as well as considering the amount of work remaining to prepare Firefox 4 for final release, we have revised our beta and release candidate schedule: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4/Beta
The frequent beta releases have been extremely helpful in identifying compatibility issues with existing web content, so we plan on continuing to release beta milestones through the end of December. Our estimate is now that release candidate builds will ship in early 2011, with a final release date close behind. Please note that, as always, this schedule is subject to change based on feedback from users and community members.”
Result for: new features
Google’s dashboard service has made it clear this week that almost three-quarters of all Android devices now run either versions 2.1 or 2.2, the latest updates to the popular mobile operating system.
In April, that number was just around 25 percent.
Android 2.2 adoption has jumped to about 30 percent, with the remaining 43.8 percent going to Android 2.1.
Around 10 percent of Android smartphone owners are still running the terribly outdated 1.5 with another 15 percent running the equally as outdated 1.6.
The strong adoption rate for 2.1 and 2.2 comes right as Android 3.0 Gingerbread prepares for its eventual launch by the end of the year.
Besides adding new features, Gingerbread should focus on improving the user experience and interface.
