(UPDATED) Apple has acquired UK music analytics firm Musicmetric and it's parent company Semetric. Musicmetric pulls data from social, the web and music services to provide analytics and forecasting for the music industry and other media companies. Apple will reportedly use the technology to add analytics to Beats Music when it relaunches later this year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
It is unclear whether or not the many artists and labels who currently use Musicmetric to guide their marketing will continue to have access to the service which draws data from Spotify and other rivals. And it seems unlikely that Spotify and others will want Apple to have access to all of their data. This could push artists and labels towards Next Big Sound, which provides similar services and is an independent company.
Making Beats analytics available to artists and labels, if that's the plan, would help make good on Beats Music's original promise to keep the service artist friendly. The same data could also help drive playlists and music discovery much as Spotify uses analytics from The Echo Nest, which it acquired last year.
As is usually the case, Apple had no official comment. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plan,” Apple told the Guardian, who uncovered the purchase in UK filings. Semetric declined to comment.
Founded in 2008, Musismetric had raised $5.8 million over three rounds.
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