Spotify is the darling of tech blogs, but the overwhelming media hype leading up to the service’s U.S. launch has seemingly not carried over to end users. According to a recent report from the New York Post, paid subscriber growth in the U.S. has failed to meet expectations thus far. Spotify launched stateside roughly nine months ago and the service amassed 250,000 paid subscribers in its first three months. According to the Post, Spotify is now home to 3 million users in the U.S., but only 600,000 are ...

Spotify said Thursday that it now serves more than 3 million active paid subscribers per month, up from the 2.5 million subscribers it was serving in November. More than 20% of its active users pay for premium monthly access, the Financial Times said, which allows users to listen to an unlimited songs without ads or use Spotify on a smartphone. “We have achieved some pretty great results in terms of the ratio of paid users,” Spotify’s chief content officer and US managing director, Ken Parks said in a...

Apple’s Newsstand application, which allows iOS 5 users on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to subscribe to and purchase magazines, has resulted in a surge of magazine subscriptions. According to paidContent, Condé Nast recently said its weekly subscription sales for nine of its digital magazines (Allure, Brides, Glamour, Self, GQ, Golf Digest, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired) increased 268% since the storefront made its debut alongside iOS 5. In addition, sales of single issues surged 142% in com...

The NPD Group’s latest Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend report suggests consumers spent an additional $1.74 billion on video game content during the second quarter. NPD classifies this additional category of content as anything that involves gaming outside of new physical video and PC game software. Examples include purchases for social network games, downloadable content, mobile games, digital downloads, subscriptions, game rentals and used game purchases. Consumers spent a total of $1.44 billion o...

Amazon has updated its Kindle for iOS application with support for magazine and newspaper subscriptions. iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users can now browse, purchase, and read from more than 100 newspapers and magazines, complete with high resolution color photos, and the company confirmed that more content is on its way. Amazon customers with existing subscriptions can find recent issues under the “Archived Items” menu inside the application. The update also removes Amazon’s Kindle Store but...

According to a new research report from Gartner, consumers are on track to spend a record $2.1 trillion on digital information and entertainment products this year. That figure is expected to hit $2.8 trillion by 2015. $1.2 trillion — 62% — is spent on subscription-based communication services such as mobile, voice, and data services, broadband packages, video services, online gaming, and cable TV subscriptions. $600 billion, 28% of the total $2.1 trillion, is spent on devices themselves, and 10% is spent...

Could all the recent hoopla stirred up by Apple’s decision to enforce its existing App Store subscription policies be much ado about nothing? Earlier this month, Apple announced that its new App Store subscription service became available to all publishers. In a related note prior to that announcement, Apple noted that it would begin cracking down on content providers who had been skirting a rule stipulating all apps providing links to Web-based content purchases must also make the same content availabl...

Just one day after Apple made its App Store subscription service available to publishers, Google has already responded by announcing a similar service for its Android platform. The solution will also work in Web-based clients, allowing publishers to reach users on multiple platforms with a single solution. Much like Apple’s implementation, Google’s One Pass provides users with a single interface where they can access and manage all of their digital newspaper, magazine and other content subscriptio...

Apple on Tuesday announced that its new App Store subscription model is available to all publishers. First introduced with News Corp’s The Daily, Apple’s new subscription model allows publishers to charge a recurring fee for content such as digital magazines and newspapers. The feature has been highly anticipated by publishers, who often claimed that the lack of a subscription model for publishers on the iPad was the main reason magazines and newspapers have not gained the traction many had hope...

News Corp’s iPad-only newspaper The Daily is finally official and we couldn’t be happier to put this drawn-out ordeal behind us. News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch was on hand at a press conference on Wednesday to introduce his new pride and joy, and details are as follows: The Daily, as one might assume, will ba a daily paper — available only on the iPad to start — and new issues will be available 365 days each year. The Daily will be interactive, packed full of 360-degree photos and original video...

Did the UK-based paper Guardian just tip Apple’s rumored iOS subscription service? In a post today, the Guardian acknowledged some of the frustrations users of its iOS application are having. After issuing its mea culpa, the publication went on to note that it will be releasing a new and improved application, one that will right some of the previous apps wrongs and, among other things, be subscription based.“We’ve already announced that the new app will have a new price point: £2.99 for six...

A sometimes overlooked feature that has been made incredibly simple on the iPhone is the ability to subscribe to a variety of calendars. Many are familiar with CalDAV as it adds a quick and easy way to keep your iPhone or iPod touch in sync with your Google Calendar, but did you know you can also add a wide range of publicly available calendar subscriptions in a matter of seconds? One of the more common subscriptions is the US holidays calendar but you can also quickly and easily add TV show schedules, networ...

Amazon announced today that it has added a dedicated Xbox LIVE store to its myriad of electronic storefronts. This latest partnership allows customers to purchase Xbox LIVE Arcade games, subscription cards and Microsoft points directly from Amazon. Customers who purchase Xbox LIVE content from Amazon will be provided with a digitally-delivered code that they can redeem via their own console or give as a gift to an Xbox 360 owner. The ability to give a select Xbox LIVE Arcade game as a gift is a feature unique...