Tech + Startups
How On-demand Music Streaming Services Work? A Brief Guide

Music is a universal language that everyone knows. And thanks to the on-demand music streaming apps, now everyone can practice this language. Considered to be the best innovation of the modern era, with on-demand music services, everyone can listen to their music anytime, anywhere.
The market for online music streaming apps is so popular that the market is swimming with various kinds of music streaming apps. Whether we talk about Spotify or Apple Music, these apps have garnered enough fan following in the market to become absolute favorites.
So if you are thinking about how to make a music app, then you should know about the inner workings of on-demand music streaming apps. Let us tell you how on-demand music streaming applications work.
Different From The Radio App!
Of course, the name on-demand music streaming app is a signal enough, but still, let us tell you exactly how these apps are different from the online radio apps.
With on-demand apps, the user has unlimited access to the songs on that platform, to be played anytime anywhere. They can choose which song they want to play on their own and create playlists themselves. Unlike online radio apps, which only lets the users change the channel and not the track, and on-demand music app gives the users full control over what they want to hear.
It Won’t Work Without The License
It is not easy to build music streaming apps and start streaming music on it. To avoid serious legal issues, you have to follow the law of property rights and get a license from the major labels and publishers.
You have to strike up a deal with the labels and the publishers who hold the rights to the music. The process is much different than online radio applications.
The payment of royalties comes in different ways, such as a percentage of the entire revenue, per-stream rate, payment made for the future streams, etc. As a music streaming business, you might have to negotiate a bit with the music rights holders for the royalty payment methods.
Without The Right Features, The App Won’t Work
Every app needs the right features to work, and a music streaming app is not beyond that. With that in mind, you have to choose the right features to make sure your music streaming app can become the best in the Music Streaming App Market in the USA and on a global scale as well.
Features such as seamless registration, easy search for songs and artists, creating playlists are common and require no reminders. However, you do need some unique features to make your app stand out in the Music streaming app market. Easy social sharing, curated playlists for every mood along with better categorization of the music, you have to add many other features that will bring out the best in your music streaming application.
Building An MVP
Before building a music streaming app like Spotify loaded with features, you should launch a Minimum Viable Product or MVP that will help you to understand if your app really works or not.
The MVP of your app will contain only the bare necessary features to make the app work. Once you are satisfied with the application and know there are no glitches in the basics, you can update the application with new features and help users make the best of the platform. Not going with an MVP model and choosing to launch a full-featured application can create serious problems and make for glitchy user experience. The best way to make sure of the best user experience is by launching an MVP.
Monetizing The Music App
You have to choose the best monetization technique to earn proper revenues. When it comes to creating a music streaming app, you have some different ways of making money.
You can choose to go with a subscription plan, with which the users can buy subscriptions to get access to the premium features. Or you can make use of the advertisement model, where you display relevant advertisements to generate revenues from them. Choosing the right monetization model will help you a lot to make profits with which you will be able to pay the revenues.
There are still many aspects of making a music application work, and you have to figure out all of them before going into the on-demand music streaming app development process. Otherwise, your app won’t work as well as you want it to and you will not succeed in making a profit.
