Spotify Discovers Video could be the clue to paying for great audio

30 million of the 40 million registered users of the Spotify streaming music service never pay a cent. You could argue that they pay with their attention. Now Spotify is asking those free users to watch video ads  of either 15 or 30 seconds. In return they get 30 minutes of uninterrupted music. I think this is better than the other idea which is old interruption advertising dressed up to look like something new.

Sounds like a deal. Especially if the ads are really well done. A good example is Wetransfer, a Dutch site that makes it easy to transfer large files via the web, especially the attachments too big to attach to an email. While you wait there is a carousel of large one page ads, some of which are beautiful.

But Spotify could do so much more with video enabled ads. It is something radio has tried to do, but it never had the right sized screens.

And I'm worried that digital radio technology is not getting embedded into smart phones. Even NFC has got into the new iPhone to be launched tomorrow, so the rumours say.