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Beatport puts new streaming service for DJs into beta

By | Published on Wednesday 15 May 2019

Beatport

Beatport yesterday put a new DJ-centric streaming service into beta. The new product is called Beatport Link and will allow users to stream music from the digital platform’s entire catalogue via various DJing software packages, with integrations into Pioneer’s performance software systems the priority at launch.

The dance music focused digital music service had a go at streaming once before with a consumer-facing offer. But it quickly called off that adventure – in part because then parent company SFX was in the process of falling over – and instead decided to focus on its original download store business.

However, with download sales still in steep decline, it was clear that Beatport would need to innovate in order to stay relevant. Streaming is a very expensive and competitive business to get involved in, of course, but it does feel like there remain opportunities in the B2B streaming domain. And with Beatport’s dominance in dance music, some kind of streaming set-up geared towards the DJ community always seemed like an obvious place for the company to go.

Other start-ups have developed tools that allow people to mix tracks off of the streaming services, many such tools plugging into Spotify or SoundCloud to access the music. But most mixing tools to date have not allowed DJs to download tracks they intend to include in the mix, which is obviously vital if anyone is really going to use one of these set ups in a club environment, where you can’t afford to be reliant on a wobbly internet connection.

Beatport Link will offer this functionality. The company’s CEO Robb McDaniels said yesterday: “We are particularly excited to introduce the upcoming ‘offline performance mode’, which firmly sets Beatport Link apart from its competitors in the DJ market”.

Confirming that the company will initially focus on making the streaming-for-DJs service available via Pioneer systems, McDaniels then said that “Beatport Link exhibits our commitment to creating the best possible experience for our expanding ecosystem of DJs, and we can think of no better partner than Pioneer DJ for the service’s first software integration”.



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