EXPLORING MECS TReNDS FOR 2014 AND BeYOND

March

PROGRAMMATIC MEDIA BUYING

Libraries vs. Listeners ...
key users track count
40 m 18 m 200 million

AN AppROACH FOR ALL SEAsONs

MECs PERspECTIVE
When programmatic buying (the use of technology to create automated rules for buying and optimizing media) rst came to the forefront, its application was heavily focused on digital display inventory and for the purposes of direct response advertising. As the technology has improved, and the industrys use of it becomes more sophisticated, many believe the approach can and will be applied to more and more sources of media for a wider range of objectives all helping get the right message to the right person, at the right time and at the right cost. The result? The ability to extend into richer, more fullling areas of peoples lives, such as music, as brands move beyond simply display. As programmatic continues to become increasingly easy to engage in, thanks in large part to advances in supply side infrastructure,the widespread adoption of programmatic automation tools, and a dramatic increase in higher quality inventory, 2014 will be the year we will see programmatic become adopted by marketers across industries. Its realtime nature, coupled with an increase in hyper-local abilities, will help drive its proliferation and growth. Marketers ready to test this opportunity have at their ngertips new audience segmentation tools to make the most of consumer experiences.

Of all the music services out there, whos got the biggest playlist? (And whos caught the ears of the most fans?) We round it up for you.
track count = user count (almost)

24 M

20 m

IHEARTRADIO

SPOTIFY

30 m

15 m 4m

13 M 1M

20 M

1m

PANDORA

GROOVESHARK

SLACKER

RHAPSODY

How To LiStEn Now

WIREDs March Guide to Music highlights the emerging role CURATORS will play in helping audiences build their relationship with the songs they love; and, in many ways, programmatic listening has begun to enter the mainstream. Top Takeaway from the Article: Dozens of online music-streaming services are competing for access to your ears, each with different recommendation systems, song databases, and rules and regulations. The Echo Nest might be the most important recommendations engine youve never heard of. Its API powers more than 400 apps including Spotify, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, and Rdio. Heres how it works: Input: A seed song, such as Johnny Cashs cover of Hurt. The Echo Nests system analyzes acoustic attributes of the song (tempo, energy, loudness, etc.) as well as cultural attributes like genre, style and mood. The software renes the recommendation pool based on the users taste prole: listen history, favorites, skips and bans, plus data from third-party apps. If you have posted your love for the band on Social Media, it takes that into account too. Individual service (Spotify, Rhapsody, etc.) will tweak for their audiences needs and USP. Output: A matching song. Spotify, for example, recommends Neil Youngs Heart of Gold. What to Look for Next: Streaming services will evolve to become more experiential. For example, Beats Music just launched the Sentence. For each of four elds where you are, how you feel, who youre with, and a genre the feature presents you with seven options at a time.
M o R E on W i R E D . C o M .

WIRED March Issue