8tracks was one of the early music streaming services, launching just before Spotify in August 2008. However, it shut down at the end of 2019 after struggling with its profitability.
Earlier this year, we reported on a comeback for 8tracks, after its assets were acquired by a company called BackBeat, Inc. Now its new CEO Jeffrey Treichel has been talking to tech site TheNextWeb about the plans for the service, which currently has one million active users.
It’s looking to license some music rights – currently it uses YouTube’s API globally – and launch in Canada, with ambitions to roll out to the UK, Germany, India and Latin America after that.
Treichel is also planning to add more features for people to create (in TheNextWeb’s words) ‘groups and communities right on the service for sharing and talking about music’ – a feature that’s still lacking from most western streaming services.
The challenge will remain turning a profit, especially if 8tracks secures global licensing deals.
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