Last man streaming: Spotify's $250 million war chest makes it the music company to beat

With $250 million in new capital, the company is planning a big expansion — and its competitors should worry:

Spotify’s investors see a different picture — one in which loss-leader products inevitably are neglected, and the team that creates the best product wins. (Netflix has notably outlasted an endless parade of rival video services built by Blockbuster, Walmart, and others.) Most Americans still download their music, but at a declining rate. If the subscription access model becomes the dominant way of listening to music, Spotify will be positioned to reap the rewards — and potentially even stay independent.

The holy trail: using Trekker, Google's edge in the next mapping war

Curious about how Google's Street View maps actually get made, I went on the ground with the team in the Presidio as they built their latest 3D panorama:

Along the way, Street View has come to serve an important strategic purpose. In the wake of Google Maps’ removal as Apple’s default mapping system in 2012, Street View has offered iPhone users regular and impressive glimpses at what they’re missing with Apple Maps. "To me it’s magic," says Steve Silverman, who helps build the Trekker hardware. "You can pull a smartphone out of your pocket, see your friend’s house, and know which door to knock on. That’s why we do this." 

Google launches Newsstand on Android to bring together all your subscriptions

I wrote about Newsstand, Google's effort to combine Flipboard-style digital magazines with more traditional newsreaders. I'm generally bearish on these sorts of products:

Google says it gives publishers a high degree of control over how their articles are presented. Magazines can upload full-featured digital editions that retain the look and feel of their print counterparts. Some even go beyond the print version — The New Yorker, for example, includes audio recordings of authors reading their stories and poems. But getting to those digital editions requires a few taps inside Newsstand, and it’s hard not to feel that the content plays second fiddle to the scaffolding around it. Publications are designed to elicit emotion through their content and design; reducing them to black text on a white tablet screen sacrifices some of that power.

Google Play Music app arrives on iPhone, but won't let you buy songs

I took an early look at Google Play Music for iPhone. Despite having many rivals, it's still worth taking a look at: 

The most distinctive part of Google Play Music lies in its Explore tab, which includes both algorithmic recommendations and playlists created by human editors. "At the end of the day, I think you need both," says Brandon Bilinski, product manager for Google Play Music. Bilinski says his team is designing the service to encourage users to explore unfamiliar categories of music, building starter playlists for 200 genres and subgenres.

'Hatching Twitter' review: before going public, blood on the boardroom walls

I reviewed Hatching Twitter, Nick Bilton's great new book about the social network's early days: 

Dorsey’s wily quest to return to power lies at the heart of Hatching Twitter, a deeply reported and deliciously written account of a company that improbably went public today. Despite nonstop arguments among its founders, serious questions about its business model, and ongoing confusion over what Twitter even is, the company has thrived. Bilton, a reporter for The New York Times, does an admirable job recreating the boardroom dramas that threatened to destroy it in its infancy. Interviewing all four of the founders as well as other major players in Twitter’s creation, Bilton offers the best look yet at how the famously troubled company survived to go public.