It’s been nearly two years with SFX Entertainment at the helm of Beatport, which in the last year alone has seen the launch of Beatport Pro (the desktop organization system + media player) and identically-named Beatport Pro (the new redesign of their online music store).
Now Beatport.com is about to have a major pivot, according to the Wall Street Journal, designed to attract fans of the many festivals that SFX is also behind. The pivot? Music streaming:
“Rather than selling downloads, the new site will feature a free, ad-supported music streaming service and the ability to listen on-demand to a catalog of mostly electronic songs”
If you’re concerned about one of the best services for buying electronic music going stream-only, don’t fear. Beatport Pro will stick around as the storefront.
Beatport is now mounting the difficult obstacle of negotiating streaming rights for all of the music on the site – something that’s easier when dealing with small labels than with massive majors. WSJ speculates that many of SFX’s acquisitions will play a role in the new Beatport, which could act as
“a community center for dance-music fans, showcasing event information, artist profiles and, potentially, live-streamed performances […] The site is likely to incorporate SFX’s latest acquisitions: a music-based social network called Listn, and hostess.fm, which allows users to listen in real time to what’s being played in clubs around the world.
The goal: To funnel the roughly 300 million fans each year who visit SFX’s 59 separate websites, or view its content elsewhere, into one place, so that advertisers can reach them more efficiently, the company has said.”
We’re still waiting on more details to emerge from Beatport themselves – but it seems pretty clear that the Journal’s source knows what they’re talking about.
What do you imagine the new Beatport will be like? Let us know in the comments.
