Technology
These two friends created a simple tool to transfer playlists between Apple Music and Spotify, and it works great
Last yr, I had the misfortune of losing all my playlists after I moved from Apple Music to Spotify. For me, playlists are necessary. They’re snapshots of a certain period in your life; possibly your summer of 2016 had a soundtrack. But traditionally, streaming music services don’t make it easy to take your playlists with you to other platforms.
You can imagine how joyful I used to be to see that Apple Music has created latest playlist uploader through the Data Transfer Initiative (DTI), a group founded by Apple, Google, and Meta to create data transfer tools. The Digital Markets in Europe Act requires these designated “gatekeepers” to fund data transfer tools as a part of a broader solution to Big Tech’s strategy of blocking users from their platforms.
Finally! There was only one big problem. The tools don’t work with the world’s hottest music service, Spotify, which apparently didn’t catch the wave of knowledge transfer (or possibly the regulator doesn’t tell them to). The DTI tool only transfers data between Apple Music and YouTube Music, making it much less useful for most individuals.
DTI Executive Director Chris Riley can be fed up with Big Tech’s blocking policies. He’s trying to get more firms to join the negotiations and make their services more portable.
“Over the last decade, we’ve kind of blended into this world, just feeling trapped,” Riley told TechCrunch. “I don’t think enough people know that this is something they need to know.”
With DTI limitations in mind, Riley suggested I move my playlists from Apple Music to Spotify using Soundfree third-party tool. Instead of working directly with streaming services, Soundiiz builds portability tools through existing APIs and acts as a translator between services. Within minutes, I used to be able to connect my accounts, transfer my playlists, and start listening to my old Apple Music playlists on Spotify. It was amazing and easy.
Soundiiz allows you to transfer playlists between Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, SoundCloud, and 20 other streaming services I’ve never heard of. There’s a simple user interface for connecting streaming services and choosing the playlists you would like to transfer, including ones another person has created.
The story behind Soundiiz may explain why it works so well and cheaply. It was created in 2013 by two friends from France, Thomas Magnano and Benoit Herbreteau, who loved listening to music while coding together. In the evenings, they decided to create a music search interface with input from everywhere in the web. In the method, they created a useful tool.
They never created a music search interface, however the playlist uploader became Soundiiz.
“I had to manipulate the API and test the fit between services. And while I was doing that, I was creating playlists and moving them between services, just for me internally,” Magnano told TechCrunch. “I presented this feature to a colleague of mine and we thought, ‘Oh, this is useful to me; maybe it’s useful to someone else.’”
In 2015, Soundiiz got its big break when it partnered with Tidal, the music service founded by Jay-Z. The music platform was trying to make it easier for people to leave Spotify and join Tidal with all the identical playlists, and Soundiiz helped with that. But Magnano says they made sure Tidal also let people export playlists, not only import them — something they require from every music service API they work with.
Then a lot more people began using the service, and the founders made Soundiiz their full-time job, but they kept their values. The two founders make a living from Soundiiz, but they tell TechCrunch they’re “not looking to get rich.” Magnano says Soundiiz has never sought outside investment to keep prices low, and the founders retain control over their project.
There are limitations to the free Soundiiz though – a number of the longer playlists might be shortened (limited to 200 songs). You even have to transfer playlists one after the other, and every one takes about a minute, so transferring a dozen or so playlists can take a while. Soundiiz offers a premium plan ($4.50 monthly, which you’ll cancel after transferring) to get around these limitations.
The two founders are still the one employees of Soundiiz, regardless that the corporate has grown: Soundiiz has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals move over 220 million playlists over the past 10 years. According to Magnano, they’ve never spent a dime on marketing, but he says they’ve never had to.
“If you were to Google ‘how to transfer Deezer to Spotify’ in 2012, there was no answer,” Magnano said. “So Soundiiz became the first result in Google search when we launched, and we’ve been doing great in SEO ever since.”
Magnano says Spotify likely has more to lose than to gain by creating a playlist uploader like Apple and Google, and he doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon. However, he says that every one of those streaming services are aware of what Soundiiz is doing and are okay with it — some even promote it of their FAQs. That said, it’s unlikely that any of them would promote playlist uploaders like Soundiiz greater than this.
Technology
Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal is leaving PhonePe’s board
Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has stepped down three-quarters from PhonePe’s board after making an identical move on the e-commerce giant.
Bengaluru-based PhonePe said it has appointed Manish Sabharwal, executive director at recruitment and human resources firm Teamlease, as an independent director and chairman of the audit committee.
Bansal played a key role in Flipkart’s acquisition of PhonePe in 2016 and has since served on the fintech’s board. The Walmart-backed startup, which operates India’s hottest mobile payment app, spun off from Flipkart in 2022 and was valued at $12 billion in funding rounds that raised about $850 million last 12 months.
Bansal still holds about 1% of PhonePe. Neither party explained why they were leaving the board.
“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Binny Bansal for being one of the first and staunchest supporters of PhonePe,” Sameer Nigam, co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, said in a press release. His lively involvement, strategic advice and private mentoring have profoundly enriched our discussions. We will miss Binny!”
Technology
The company is currently developing washing machines for humans
Forget about cold baths. Washing machines for people may soon be a brand new solution.
According to at least one Japanese the oldest newspapersOsaka-based shower head maker Science has developed a cockpit-shaped device that fills with water when a bather sits on a seat in the center and measures an individual’s heart rate and other biological data using sensors to make sure the temperature is good. “It also projects images onto the inside of the transparent cover to make the person feel refreshed,” the power says.
The device, dubbed “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” (the human washing machine of the longer term), may never go on sale. Indeed, for now the company’s plans are limited to the Osaka trade fair in April, where as much as eight people will have the option to experience a 15-minute “wash and dry” every day after first booking.
Apparently a version for home use is within the works.
Technology
Zepto raises another $350 million amid retail upheaval in India
Zepto has secured $350 million in latest financing, its third round of financing in six months, because the Indian high-speed trading startup strengthens its position against competitors ahead of a planned public offering next yr.
Indian family offices, high-net-worth individuals and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, maintaining Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria and Kalyan, in addition to stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are amongst those backing the brand new enterprise, which is India’s largest fully national primary round.
The funding push comes as Zepto rushes so as to add Indian investors to its capitalization table, with foreign ownership now exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported on the brand new round’s deliberations last month. The Mumbai-based startup has raised over $1.35 billion since June.
Fast commerce sales – delivering groceries and other items to customers’ doors in 10 minutes – will exceed $6 billion this yr in India. Morgan Stanley predicts that this market shall be value $42 billion by 2030, accounting for 18.4% of total e-commerce and a pair of.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players including Flipkart, Myntra and Nykaa to cut back delivery times as they lose touch with specialized delivery apps.
While high-speed commerce has not taken off in many of the world, the model seems to work particularly well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever-present.
High-speed trading platforms are creating “parallel trading for consumers seeking convenience” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.
Zepto and its rivals – Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Tata-owned BigBasket – currently operate on lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to realize contribution margins of 7-8% and adjusted EBITDA margins to greater than 5% by 2030. (Zepto currently spends about 35 million dollars monthly).
An investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch shows that Zepto, which handles greater than 7 million total orders every day in greater than 17 cities, is heading in the right direction to realize annual sales of $2 billion. It anticipates 150% growth over the following 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next yr.
However, the rapid growth of high-speed trading has had a devastating impact on the mom-and-pop stores that dot hundreds of Indian cities, towns and villages.
According to the All India Federation of Consumer Products Distributors, about 200,000 local stores closed last yr, with 90,000 in major cities where high-speed trading is more prevalent.
The federation has warned that without regulatory intervention, more local shops shall be vulnerable to closure as fast trading platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.
Zepto said it has created job opportunities for tons of of hundreds of gig employees. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation building, create millions of jobs and offer better services to Indian consumers,” Palicha said in an announcement.
Regulatory challenges arise. Unless an e-commerce company is a majority shareholder of an Indian company or person, current regulations prevent it from operating on a listing model. Fast trading corporations don’t currently follow these rules.
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