By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard about all the big features of both iPhone 4 and iOS 4 (the artist formerly known as iPhone OS 4, which we heard about previously). But something that Apple didn’t address too much today was a feature I’m most looking forward to: background tasks. I’m pretty sure that being able to run apps like Pandora in the background while I do other things on the iPhone is going to be awesome. And I confirmed that today.
During the hands-on time after the keynote today at WWDC, I got a chance to play around with a new version of Pandora — one that runs in the background with iOS 4. As you can see in the video below, the way Apple does this is both smart and seamless. → Read More
Remember when Pandora was on its deathbed? Yeah, those days are long gone. The service has just raised yet another round of funding, we’ve confirmed. The round was led GGV Capital and participated in by Allen & Company, They’re not disclosing the amount raised, but you can bet it’s fairly substantial considering that their last round in July of last year was $35 million. Up until now, Pandora has raised just about $57 million in total.
The new money will be used to further fuel growth and invest in new resources, the company says. Back in April, the company passed the 50 million user mark (up from 40 million the previous December) just as they launched their new iPad app. Mobile growth has been a key for the company, and it’s likely to explode even further with the launch of the iPhone 4.0 OS which will allow Pandora to run in the background for the first time. Despite the restraint, Pandora has been one of the top downloaded apps of all time in the App Store. → Read More
Pioneer is taking a big step in bridging the two landmasses of Internet radio and vehicle entertainment. By utilizing a free iPhone app, Pandora Link, the company is bringing Pandora to two of its latest systems, the Pioneer AVIC-Z120BT and AVIC-X920BT navigation systems. Simply run the app and connect the iPhone to head unit with the USB cable; the in-dash radio system will then displays all of Pandora’s trademark functions like thumbs up and thumbs down formatted in Pioneer’s great-looking interface. → Read More
Believe it or not, it’s actually quite hard to take an idea from concept to render to prototype to production. Sure, inside Microsoft you can do it in a couple hours (if they don’t assassinate the project), but what if you’re just a group of guys who want to put together a really awesome open-source handheld game console? We’ve had our eye on the Pandora for a long time, but the project has been stricken with delay after delay. What’s the deal? → Read More
Want a single valid reason to buy the 2011 Ford Fiesta besides the silky-smooth 6-speed transmition, roomy interior, and confident ride? Sync. It’s that awesome. The Microsoft co-developed system has been in Ford vehicles for a few years, but the Fiesta is the first car to receive the next-gen functions that bring the hands-free control to Android and BlackBerry apps.
This was announced a few days ago along with the API, but I got a chance to try it myself and must say that it deliverers. It works just as advertised and is likely the safest way to control Pandora, get your Tweets, and listen to podcasts off your phone. You must watch the video after the jump to see this sweet system in action. Welcome to the future, everyone. It smells nice here. It smells nice here. → Read More
If Google Docs is about sharing documents and spreadsheets, Microsoft is now fighting back by tapping into the biggest sharing network on the planet: Facebook. Today at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Microsoft is tapping into Facebook to create Docs.com. The app, which was created by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, is a way for Facebook users to share and collaboratively edit Microsoft Office documents.
Docs.com can be shared with your Facebook friends, and the documents can be switched back and forth between the Web and the desktop. Microsoft, of course, is also moving Office online, but I have a feeling Docs is going to take off faster just through Facebook. Microsoft partnered with Facebook to build Docs.com to show what could be done with Facebook’s new Open Graph API and Social plugins. For instance, Docs.com will begin using Facebook’s new auto-login feature it announced earlier today so that users won’t even need to click on a Facebook Connect button to get started. → Read More
Grace Digital Audio announced their latest creation today, the Allegro Portable Wireless Radio & Streamer. The Allegro is portable unit, designed to allow you to take your internet radio choice with you when you step away from the computer. → Read More
In preparation for the launch of the iPad tomorrow, iPad Apps are live in iTunes and we’re sorting through the best ones as fast as we can. But with more than 2,000 iPad apps in the App Store, the choices are already daunting.
To help you find the best apps at launch, we’ve put together the definitive list below. It includes all the iPad apps reviewed on TechCrunch, as well as other promising ones we have not gotten to yet. If you have a favorite you think should go on this list, tell us why in comments.
Here is our list, which we will keep updating through the launch of the iPad: → Read More
The iPad isn’t launching until Saturday, but many of the apps for it are already live (even ones under embargo). That includes one of the most popular apps of all time for the iPhone: Pandora. Based on the App Store description and screenshots, you can expect Pandora to be one of the top apps on the iPad as well.
Version 3.0 of Pandora is a Universal app, meaning it includes builds for the iPhone and iPad. Those who have the app installed (likely most of you with an iPhone or iPod touch) probably downloaded the update automatically today through iTunes. So what’s in it? Well, obviously there is a completely redesigned interface for the iPad (see screenshots below). But Pandora has also added album artwork to the station list across all the platforms. Perhaps most significantly, Pandora has also improved the audio streaming across the board. This means faster start times and fewer dropouts. → Read More
I’m no expert on advertising, but this ad being run by Yahoo on Pandora just doesn’t feel right to me. Partly because I don’t want to search for more songs from an artist that I just said I don’t like. But mostly because it’s subliminally connecting a big thumbs down with the Yahoo name and logo.
But hey, they’re keeping Pandora chugging, and that’s a good thing. → Read More
For quite a while now, I’ve been following the progress of the Pandora, an open-source handheld for music, movies, and games. It’s hard to stay excited, though, when there’s the constant threat of the thing ceasing to exist. That seemed to be a risk for a while, but now we’re being told that all the hurdles are jumped and the thing will start rolling off the assembly line any moment now. Just thought you should know. What are you waiting for? Get your pre-order in before the whole first run gets snapped up! → Read More
Almost two years ago The Filter, a startup backed by Peter Gabriel, launched to bring better music and movie recommendations to consumers. The site got lost in the abundance of more popular music and movie sites out there, so about a year ago CEO David Maher Roberts decided to shift gears and start licensing his recommendation engine to other businesses.
It was the right move. Today, the Filter powers recommendations for sites and devices with a combined reach of about 20 million people, with two more large media deals in the final stages of converting from a trail to a full license which will bring its total reach up to 85 million. The startup’s revenues went from $150,000 in 2008 to about $1 million in 2009. “All that money came from licensing,” says Roberts. “I think we get $2,000 from Google for advertising.” Since November, the company has been “borderline breakeven.” And it just added to its board of directors former Google engineering VP Doug Merrill, who left Google to briefly serve as president of EMI for a year. → Read More
Buried all the way at the bottom of the Wall Street Journal’s latest piece about the Apple Tablet is a very interesting nugget of information. Apple is apparently gearing up to launch a cloud-based iTunes replacement called iTunes.com as soon as this June, WSJ states citing sources familiar with the matter.
Yesterday, we ran a guest post by Michael Robertson, the former CEO of MP3.com, who laid out Apple’s cloud-based media strategy going forward. An iTunes-in-the-cloud offering is the central part of this, and could happen “almost over night,” as Robertson laid out. And late last year we wrote about how a move to the cloud was inevitable for iTunes. The planets seem to be aligning for this to happen sooner rather than later. Apple’s recent purchase of the music startup Lala has potentially made this possible, because of that team’s talent, if nothing else. But there’s more. → Read More
It took a little while, but Digg finally has a new head of PR. The company has hired Michele Husak, who previously held the same job at Pandora, the streaming music recommendation engine. According to her LinkedIn profile, she started the job last month, but they’re just announcing it now.
Husak takes the official title of Director of PR, which is the same position vacated in November by Kiersten Hollars, when she stepped down as Digg’s Director of Communications. Hollars left Digg to re-join her former boss, Brad Garlinghouse who is now helping to re-build AOL. Hollars and Garlinghouse both left Yahoo around the same time in 2008, which is when she went to Digg. → Read More
Editor’s note: As the capital markets heat up and the economy continues to rebound, the deal flow is starting to open up again. We’ve already given you our top ten IPO candidates for 2010. In this guest post, Kelly Porter, an M&A expert at Woodside Capital Partners, proposes ten digital media deals he’d like to see. None of the companies mentioned in this editorial are clients of Woodside Capital Partners.
Digital media M&A activity is expected to pick up in 2010—big acquirers have significant cash on their balance sheets, share prices are up, and many good acquisition candidates are on the landscape. With this in mind, I’ve put together the following list of 10 interesting Digital Media M&A deals for 2010. Some are longshots, some are slam dunks; all would create compelling new opportunities and possibilities. It’s a list that was compiled in recent weeks over coffee with some of the brightest and most connected folks in the valley. Without further ado, here are the deals we envisioned: → Read More
Online music services have had a bad few weeks. Imeem got bought by MySpace for next to nothing, Lala got bought by Apple for something ranging from a little to not-very-much. Spotify continues to be a no-show in the U.S. But at least one service, Pandora, appears to be doing quite well for itself.
The service has announced that it surpassed 40 million registered users earlier this month. That means the service had doubled its size in 2009. And it’s adding 600,000 new registered users a week now. Even more remarkable is that half of those new users are coming from mobile devices. And of those, the iPhone continues to lead the way with 10 million Pandora users of its own. That number has grown some 400% this year. → Read More
I’m here at Capitol Records in Hollywood, California for a special media event where Lala, MySpace, iLike, Google and others are officially announcing the launch of Google’s Music Onebox — a special new kind of Google search result that will let you instantly stream songs directly from Google’s results page. We first broke the news of the feature’s impending launch last week, though none of the companies involved have been willing to comment on it until now.
Here’s how the new feature will work: Onebox will let users stream songs directly from Google’s search result page, and will also include additional content like tour information and music videos (the actual content shown will vary depending on the partner — more on that later). Enter a query for “Use Somebody”, and you’re going to see a small ‘play’ button in your search result that lets you stream the Kings of Leon song in its entirety, or buy the song. Clicking on the play button will bring up a small browser window that will immediately start streaming your song. → Read More
Currently, if you want to share a Pandora station or song with a friend, you have to email it to them. Last time I checked, this isn’t 1994. Tonight, Pandora is joining the 21st century with the addition of simple ways to share stations and songs on Twitter and Facebook. And it’s further emphasizing a feature that no one seems to realize exists: Gifting Pandora stations.
On Pandora’s main playback pages you will now see a new set of buttons next to the traditional playback ones. These include a Twitter button, a Facebook button, a mail button, and a gift button. Clicking on any of those allows you to send the current station or current song you’re listening to via those respective services. → Read More
A large number of web services are geographically restricted, such as Hulu, Pandora and Spotify. The reasons are usually to do with content licensing restrictions, or because US visitors (or visitors from other advanced economies) are of a higher value from a monetization perspective. A web application can only guess at the location of a visitor based on an IP address and other information, such as browser language and regional settings.
IP addresses are mapped to countries (and in some instances, further to states and cities) using large commercial datasets such as GeoIP from Maxmind, which is a ‘best guess’ database based on data it has collected (how, I would rather not know). The system is accurate enough to enable services to block on a country level, but often fail at a more local level. → Read More
“I need Android like I need a hole in the head.” – Tom Conrad, Pandora CTO
Popular music service Pandora is a huge hit on the iPhone, and they were one of the first Palm Pre apps available as well. But when it comes to Android, the company has at best always been “meh.”
In July 2008 Pandora CTO Tom Conrad said “I need Android like I need a hole in the head,” adding “the last thing from a technology standpoint that i need is another OS platform that sits on top of buggy firmware.” The relevant video clip is here (skip to the 55 second mark).
“We’re going to put your face next to that quote when you launch an Android app,” I said at the time (check!). Conrad later clarified his position.
Anyway, back to reality, Pandora has now launched an Android application, and it’s pretty darn cool. Unlike the new Facebook for Android, it doesn’t skimp on features. In fact, it’s the first mobile Pandora application that integrates with the built in music player so that you can create stations from the artists and songs in your local collection. It also integrates with the Android home screen widget system. → Read More
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