With the popularity of the Internet and the wider bandwidth, more and more people watch streaming movies online. The larger the scale of the web site, the more load it has to handle. Thus, how to efficiently process users' queries, reduce network latency and packet loss, and improve data reliability at once are top issues. Cloud environments, in this thesis, are used to solve these problems. Also, a cloud-based streaming system that enables users query movie information and watch movies streaming online is designed and implemented to deliver compelling user experiences.

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With the rise of peer-to-peer software like Napster, many predicted that the digitalisation, sharing and dematerialisation of music would bring a radical transformation within the recording industry. This opened up a period of controversy and uncertainty in which competing visions were articulated of technology-induced change, markedly polarised between utopian and dystopian accounts with no clear view of ways forwards. A series of moves followed as various players sought to valorise music on the digital music networks, culminating in an emergence of successful streaming services. This thesis examines why there was a mismatch between initial predictions and what has actually happened in the market. It offers a detailed examination of the innovation processes through which digital technology was implemented and domesticated in the recording industry. This reveals a complex, contradictory and constantly evolving landscape in which the development of digital music distribution was far removed from the smooth development trajectories envisaged by those who saw these developments as following a simple trajectory shaped by technical or economic determinants. The research is based upon qualitative data analysis of fifty five interviews with a wide range of entrepreneurs and innovators, focusing on two successful innovation cases with different points of insertion within the digital recording industry; (1) Spotify: currently the world’s most popular digital music streaming service; and (2) INgrooves: an independent digital music distribution service provider whose system is also used by Universal Music Group. The thesis applies perspectives from the Social Shaping of Technology (“SST”) and its extension into Social Learning in Technological Innovation. It explores the widely dispersed processes of innovation through which the complex set of interactions amongst heterogeneous players who have conflicting interests and differing commitments involved in the digital music networks guided diverging choices in relation to particular market conditions and user requirements. The thesis makes three major contributions to understanding digital disruption in the recording industry. (1) In contrast to prevailing approaches which take P2P distribution as the single point of focus, the study investigates the multiplicity of actors and sites of innovation in the digital recording industry. It demonstrates that the dematerialisation of music did not lead to a simple, e.g. technologically-driven transformation of the industry. Instead a diverse array of realignments had to take place across the music sector to develop digital music valorisation networks. (2) By examining the detailed processes involved in the evolution of digital music services, it highlights the ways in which business models are shaped through a learning process of matching and finding constantly changing digital music users’ needs. Based on the observation that business models must be discovered in the course of making technologies work in the market, a new framework of ‘social shaping of business models’ is proposed in order to conceptualise business models as an emergent process in which firms refine their strategies in the light of emerging circumstances. (3) Drawing upon the concepts of musical networks (Leyshon 2001) and mediation (Hennion 1989), the thesis investigates the interaction of the diverse actors across the circuit of the recording business – production, distribution, valorisation, and consumption. The comprehensive analysis of the intricate interplay between innovation actors and their interactions in the economic, cultural, legal and institutional context highlights the need to develop a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the recording industry.

Denna studie undersöker hur det privata vardagslyssnade av musik ser ut idag hos studenter. Studien har särskild fokus på hur lyssnandet påverkas av studenternas tillgång till musik via tjänsten Spotify. Uppsatsen presenterar, diskuterar och analyserar fem semi-strukturerade intervjuer utifrån tidigare forskning samt psykologen James Gibsons teori om affordance. Undersökningen är strukturerad efter ett antal teman som exempelvis: musik som tröst, musik för att kontrollera en social situation och musik och identitet. Materialet från intervjuerna jämförs och analyseras utifrån teorin om affordance. Resultatet visar att vardagslyssnandet idag ser annorlunda ut på grund av den mängd av musik som idag finns tillgängligt för studenterna, till skillnad från innan streamingstjänsterna slog igenom.

Simply by reading data and statistics of the charting positions of popular songs on global and national music charts, it is hard to understand how the popularity of songs, albums, or artists within pop music truly behave over time. However, analyzing the data using visualizations as means of communication might provide us with new points of view and new insights into how the popularity of contemporary popular music behaves over a longer period. This is the hypothesis that we intend to investigate in this thesis. An interactive visualization application (presented as a website) has been developed based on data from “Daily Top 200” lists provided by Spotify. A survey was then used to evaluate the application, with the results suggesting that new and interesting insights into the trends in the popularity of music can be gained from the proposed prototype.

Följande studie undersöker musikkonsumenternas behov i relation till streamingtjänsterna, med utgångspunkt i det krig som pågår mellan streamingtjänsterna, samt i de tre aktuellastreamingtjänsterna Spotify, Deezer och Apple Music. Studien undersöker musikkonsumentens (tolv till 35 år gamla) omedvetna behov som musikstreamingtjänsten ska uppfylla, samt hur förhållandet ser ut mellan de här behoven och musikkonsumentens val av streamingtjänst. Studien har genom en kvalitativ metod, där fokusgrupper och en semistrukturerad intervju legat till grund för empiriinsamlingen, kommit fram till slutsatsen att musikkonsumenten har två övergripande omedvetna behov: personifiering och igenkänning i tjänsten, samt behovet av att streamingtjänsten ska göra det möjligt för musikkonsumenten att leva i streamingen, i flow med den streamade musiken. Förhållandet mellan de omedvetna behoven och valet av streamingtjänst innebär övergripande att musikkonsumenten använder den streamingtjänst som tillfredsställer de omedvetna behoven, men inte byter tjänst med utgångspunkt i sina omedvetna behov, eftersom konsumenten inte själv känner till behoven. / The following study examines the needs music consumers have in relation to the streamingservices, based on the war going on on the streaming market, as well as in the three currentstreaming services Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music. The study examines the music consumers (twelve to 35 years old) unconscious needs that the music streaming service must meet, and how the relationship is shaped between these needs and the music consumer's choice of streaming service. The study has through a qualitative approach, where focus groups and one semi-structured interview formed the basis of empirical data collection, come to the conclusion that the music consumer has two unconscious needs: personalisation and self-recognition in the streaming service, as well as the need for the streaming service to allow the music consumers to live in the stream, in flow with the stream of music. The relationship between these unconscious needs and the choice of streaming service, shows that the music consumer is using the streaming service that satisfies their unconscious needs, but does not replace the service on the basis of their unconscious needs since the consumer do not know these needs themselves.

現今我們所住的世界不再只是一個單純的有線網路，隨著WLAN的無線區域網路的存取點越來越普遍，每個家庭使用有線網路做為後端網路然後使用無線區域網路的存取點作為最後一哩的情況也隨著變的常見了，所以現在的網路世界不再只是一個單純的有線網路而是一個有線跨無線的異質性無線網路了，TCP一個我們所常用的傳輸層的協定當遇到異質性無線網路時已經被證實會對封包遺失的原因有誤判，在無線傳輸時封包遺失的理由包括訊號品質不好以及用戶端之間在無線介質中的競爭，因此我們設計了一個具有跨層考量的EATCP-Assisted模組來幫助傳送端收集媒體存取控制層的資訊並使的傳送端在調整競爭視窗上面更有效率，在EATCP中有兩大部分：第一部份是估算階段，第二階段就是EATCP的擁塞控制機制，藉由EATCP-Assisted模組所收集到的wirelessRTT以及utilization我們可以有效的估算出wiredBW以及wirelessBW，並藉由這兩個參數我們可以準確的將封包遺失的原因從頻道衰減以及用戶端之間的競爭中分別出來，因此一個適當的競爭視窗就可以藉由這些資訊來調整出來。 / Recently, with the growth of WLAN, the world we live today is no longer a pure wired network, it’s a heterogeneous wireless network. The TCP that we commonly used has been proven to have misjudgements of packet loss in heterogeneous wireless networks. We design a cross-layer architecture called EATCP-Assisted module to help the sender collect MAC layer information, and adjust the congestion window more efficiently. In EATCP, there are two important parts: the first is estimation phase; the second is congestion control algorithm. By collecting the wirelessRTT, and utilization we can estimate the wiredBW and wirelessBW. The EATCP will distinguish the causes of packet loss from network congestion, channel fading, or contention between wireless clients. Thus, appropriate congestion window adjustment can be done accordingly. The simulation results show that our EATCP outperforms other versions of TCP.

Streaming services have had a significant gain in popularity over the last decade, with an increasing number of subscribers. Along with digitalization, more households seek accessible entertainment that allows them to choose the type of content they wish to watch. However, as streaming services have grown in popularity, the content library of those services has been increasing, leaving users overwhelmed when deciding what to watch next. A recommendation system is used by the majority of streaming providers to assist its customers find appropriate material to watch. This recommendation system suggests suitable material based on the user's collected data. However, the recommendation systems suggestions are not always perceived to be relevant. The purpose of this thesis is to identify potential perceived problems with the recommendation systems and their causes. This was accomplished by investigating how consumers of those services experience them by conducting a survey and interviews. The identified problems have then been compiled into a basis. The goal of this thesis is to provide a basis that may benefit streaming services, their consumers and be of use by academics to conduct further research within the field. The basis indicates that there are several perceived problems with the current recommendation systems. A total of nine problems have been documented and discussed. / Streamingtjänster har haft en betydande ökning i popularitet under det senaste årtiondet, med ett ökande antal användare. Tillsammans med digitaliseringen söker fler hushåll tillgänglig underhållning som gör att de kan välja vilken typ av innehåll de vill titta på. Men eftersom streamingtjänster har ökat i popularitet, har utbudet för dessa tjänster ökat, vilket gör användarna överväldigade när de bestämmer sig för vad de ska titta på härnäst. Rekommendationssystemen används av majoriteten av streamingtjänsterna för att hjälpa sina kunder att hitta lämpligt material att titta på. Rekommendations systemen föreslår lämpligt material baserat på användarens beteende mönster. Rekommendations systemets förslag uppfattas dock inte alltid vara relevanta. Syftet med denna uppsats är att identifiera potentiella problem som användare uppfattar av rekommendations systemen och vad som kan orsaka dessa problem. Detta åstadkoms genom att undersöka hur konsumenter av dessa tjänster upplever dem genom att genomföra en undersökning samt ett antal intervjuer. De identifierade problemen har sedan sammanställts till ett underlag. Målet med detta examensarbete är att ge ett underlag som kan gynna streamingtjänster, deras konsumenter och vara till nytta för akademiker för att genomföra ytterligare studier inom området. Underlaget tyder på att det finns flera problem med nuvarande rekommendationssystem som upplevs av användare. Totalt har nio problem dokumenterats och diskuterats.

Denna studie syftar att undersöka huruvida animation som visuellt komplement på Spotify väcker större engagemang emotionellt än ett statiskt skivomslag. Animerade filmer har tagits fram till sex olika låtar på albumet 99.9% av artisten Kaytranada. Detta har gjorts genom en förstudie i form av en enkät, samt research om de befintliga filmer som finns tillgängliga på Spotify i dagsläget. Efter detta har designarbetet utförts genom brainstorming, explorativt skissande och storyboards. För att utvärdera skapades en värderingsmatris med syfte att välja ut de mest engagerande idéerna, för att sedan fortsätta med digitalt skissande och slutligen animering. Efter detta värderades animationerna gentemot det statiska skivomslaget genom en kvalitativ enkät, såväl som två olika fokusgrupper. Resultatet visade att även om animationerna ansågs något repetitiva så ansåg en majoritet att de var mer engagerande emotionellt än ett statiskt skivomslag.

The objective of this Masters`s Thesis is an analysis of marketing and communication strategy of Spotify, the music streaming service, and subsequent presentation of proposals and recommendation with the aim to improve existing strategy. The thesis consists of theoretical and practical part. In the theoretical part, basic terms such as marketing, marketing mix, marketing and communication strategy, are defined. In the practical part, streaming service Spotify, its marketing and communication mix and competitors analysis, are described. A substantial part of this thesis is own market research in a form of a survey. Findings and results derived from primary and secondary sources help the author to draw conclusions and provide recommendation for improvement of existing marketing and communication strategy of Spotify in the Czech Republic.