• June 10th, 2013

    iTunes Radio? Pandora And Slacker Are Not Impressed

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    Apple unveiled its long-rumored iRadio, er, iTunes Radio service this morning at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Now that we know the basics of the streaming music service (which is supposed to launch this fall), one of the obvious questions is: What does this mean for existing Internet radio/online music services like Pandora and Spotify?

    Well, I emailed Pandora, Rdio, Slacker, and… → Read More

    June 7th, 2013

    Apple And Sony Reach Agreement, Giving iRadio Full Record Label Support, Report Claims

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    Apple’s rumored iRadio support has just scored a major win, signing up remaining holdout Sony Music according to a new report from AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka. This follows reports earlier this week that talks had successfully resulted in arrangements with Warner Bros. and Universal, which should mean Apple is in a good position to be able to launch its streaming radio service soon, possibly as early… → Read More

    June 5th, 2013

    Pandora Launches New HTML5-Based TV Experience, Starting With Xbox 360 and PS3

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    Pandora today launched a new browser-based interface for TVs that it hopes will help set the standard for using the service in the living room. The first devices to support this new HTML5-based interface are the Xbox 360 and PS3, both of which will finally get their first semi-native implementations of Pandora thanks to this new version. → Read More

    June 4th, 2013

    Apple Reportedly Refocuses iAd On New Streaming Music Radio Service

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    Apple is said to be directing engineering and sales talent from its iAd business, which currently supports mobile display advertising run by Apple on iOS, to help further its new music service offering, which is rumored to be free and ad-supported. Businessweek claims that Apple will unveil the service next week, backing up what we heard yesterday, and that Apple is changing its in-house ad… → Read More

    June 3rd, 2013

    Apple Reportedly Brings Warner Music On Board For iRadio Streaming Service Ahead Of WWDC

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    Apple has secured rights with Warner Music Group for publishing and recorded music, according to a report from the New York Times, and has recorded rights for Universal Music Group, but not for music publishing, as it makes a final push to land agreements with all three major music labels in order to launch a streaming music service in time for WWDC, which kicks off next Monday, June 10. → Read More

    May 23rd, 2013

    Pandora Stock Jumps As Revenue Beats The Street, Grows 58% To $128.5M; Mobile Ad Revenue Hits Record High

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    Pandora has had a busy quarter. In March, the social radio company saw its long-time CEO Joe Kennedy abruptly step down, leaving the board to scramble to find a replacement. On the bright side, Kennedy’s exit, while likely a result of stress, followed relatively good times for Pandora. And it’s continued to push forward since. → Read More

    April 9th, 2013

    Pandora Surpasses 200 Million Registered Users, 140 Million Access Via Mobile

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    Pandora has just announced that its online streaming radio has quite a few listeners. In fact, the company has surpassed 200 million registered users in the U.S. That’s up from 100 million registered users in July of 2011, meaning that around half of Pandora’s users have come over in the past two years, despite the fact that Pandora launched all the way back in 2005.

    Slow and steady wins the… → Read More

    March 21st, 2013

    Pandora Makes Its Windows Phone 8 Debut, Gives Users Ad-Free Music Through The End Of The Year

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    Spotify and Rdio have already made their mark (for better or worse) on Windows Phone 8, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room in the Windows Phone Store for another claimant to the streaming music throne. Nearly five months after it was publicly announced, Pandora has just officially pushed its native Windows Phone 8 app out into the wild. → Read More

    March 7th, 2013

    Pandora’s Long-Time CEO Joe Kennedy Abruptly Steps Down, Just As It Starts Making Money On Mobile

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    Hot on the heels of a relatively strong quarter for the streaming music service, Pandora has announced that its long-time CEO and President, Joe Kennedy, will be stepping down. In a statement this afternoon, Pandora said that he will “continue in his current role until his successor is named.”

    Kennedy, who has been at the helm of the streaming music service since July 2004 and helped take the… → Read More

    March 7th, 2013

    Pandora Shares Jump 18% After Better-Than-Expected Earnings, Mobile Revenue Up 111% To $80.3M

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    Veteran streaming radio platform Pandora released its fourth quarter earnings today, in which it saw its fiscal 2013 revenue of $427.1 million, representing a 56 percent year-over-year increase, and fourth quarter revenue of $125.1 million, an increase of 54 percent year-over-year. In turn, mobile revenue for the fourth quarter grew 111 percent year-over-year to $80.3 million. → Read More

    February 27th, 2013

    Pandora Resurrects Its 40-Hour (Monthly) Limit On Free Music, But This Time It’s Capping Mobile Usage

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    As it struggles to deal with rising royalty costs, streaming radio service Pandora is bringing back an old idea by capping free monthly usage at 40 hours.

    The company previously limited free desktop usage to 40 hours per month, but it lifted the cap in September 2011. CEO Joe Kennedy suggested that Pandora’s mobile business is in a similar position to its desktop business a few years ago — it… → Read More

    December 10th, 2012

    Pandora Internet Radio Launches Fully In Australia And New Zealand With Mobile Apps For iOS And Android

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    Pandora has fully launched in Australia and New Zealand, the only two places outside of the U.S. where the service is available in its entirety, with the addition of mobile access via iOS and Android apps today. Previously, the service was available in a limited form in both countries thanks to a web-only access trial, but now smartphone users can get in on the action. → Read More

    December 4th, 2012

    Pandora Beats, Q3 2013 Revenue Up 60% To $120M, Net Income Of $2.1M; Q4 Forecast Much Lower Than Expected

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    Internet radio service Pandora released its financial results for the Q3 2013, ending October 31 2012. Revenue is up 60 percent compared to Q3 2012 to $120 million. Pandora reported a non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.05. It represents a GAAP net income of $2.052 million. Advertising revenue was $106.3 million, a 61 percent year-over-year increase. Subscription and other revenue was $13.7 million… → Read More

    November 5th, 2012

    Foundation Video: Tom Conrad, CTO Of Pandora On Reinventing Radio

    Foundation Interview: Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora

    In this edition of my Foundation video series, Pandora CTO Tom Conrad shares his inspiration for reinventing the radio. He reveals how a jailbroken iPhone played a key part in Pandora’s success, and explains why Thanksgiving is the biggest day of the year for the service. He also tells the crazy backstory behind Web 1.0 flameout Pets.com, what it was like to be engineer during the “dark… → Read More

    October 29th, 2012

    Pandora’s New iOS And Android Apps Get The Facebook Treatment: Listening Timelines, Activity Feeds And Social Sharing Features To Do Battle With Spotify (And Perhaps Apple)

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    Pandora is one of the older and more established internet radio services out there, with 150 million registered users, 58.3 million active listeners and 115 million registered users on mobile. Now, with a lot of competition crowding its space from Spotify, (possibly) Apple, I Heart Radio and more, Pandora is looking to that mobile base for growth. Today, it is releasing new apps for iOS and… → Read More

    October 9th, 2012

    Two Years In Coming, Art.sy Finally Brings Pandora’s Genome Project To The Wacky World Of Art

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    At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC in May 2010, a young startup named Art.sy took home the “Rookie Disruptor Award” for its art-focused search engine, which allowed users to find art by style, category, size, color, and more. Art.sy also tapped into users’ social graphs to offer personalized recommendations to make art discovery a little less overwhelming.

    The idea caught the attention of investors, and… → Read More

    October 9th, 2012

    Founder Tim Westergren Says Some Musicians Earn Up To $3 Million A Year From Pandora

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    Pandora founder Tim Westergren denied claims that musicians earn peanuts from streaming services and said today at SF MusicTech that lower royalty rates would bolster innovation. “There are a couple artists making over $2 million on Pandora. Some artists making over $100K a year.”

    Of the rumor that artists only make $15 a year from streaming services, Westergren said, “that’s far, far from… → Read More

    September 28th, 2012

    Report: Apple’s Pandora-Killer Hits Licensing Trouble With Sony/ATV

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    One rumor that was nearly forgotten amid the iPhone 5′s launch and iOS 6 media circus was that Apple was reportedly looking to release a Pandora-killer soon. The streaming music service would be a natural next step in the progression Apple’s taken with digital music, but it looks like licensing issues may have stepped in the way once again. → Read More

    September 21st, 2012

    Pandora Security Vulnerability Puts Some User Passwords At Risk [Update: Pandora Says Fix Coming]

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    There are reports circulating related to the security of users’ Pandora passwords. It’s not a password leak or an attack, however, but there’s concern that passwords aren’t being well secured on users’ computers. Initially, word was that Pandora was storing cleartext passwords (meaning unencrypted) directly on users’ hard drives, which would have been a major concern. Specifically, those passwords… → Read More

    August 29th, 2012

    Pandora’s Q2 2013: $101.3M In Revenue, 54.9M Active Users, And A Net Loss Of $5.4M

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    Internet music service Pandora just announced its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2013. The company posted total revenue of $101.3 million, which was up 51 percent year-over-year. Yet, Pandora still reported a net loss per share of $0.03. As always, the most important expense for Pandora is content acquisition — in other words, music royalties. Non-GAAP earnings per share… → Read More

    August 23rd, 2012

    Pandora Ships Its Biggest Android Update Yet With A Redesign, Music Exploration Features And More

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    Pandora has been fairly open about the fact that mobile is a major focus for the music streaming company. More than 70% of listening on Pandora takes place on a mobile device—33 million hours of songs are played in a single day on Pandora, and 23 of those hours take place on mobile platforms. And more than 100 million of Pandora’s 150 million registered users have accessed Pandora via mobile… → Read More

    August 10th, 2012

    Senzari Takes On Pandora With Personalized Radio That Lets You Customize By Popularity, Similarity, Discovery & Tempo

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    Senzari, the Pandora competitor backed by $1 million in funding from 500 Startups and others, has just debuted a brand-new recommendation engine called AMP3, which steps up the competition quite a bit between it and other streaming radio providers. The new engine (which we’ll just call “AMP” for short) isn’t like the basic “artist radio” option found in Pandora, or the radio features in other… → Read More

    May 23rd, 2012

    Pandora’s Quarterly Results: $80.8M In Revenue, 52M Active Users & 3.09B Listening Hours

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    Internet music service Pandora just announced its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2013. The company had a total revenue of $80.8 million, a 58% increase year-over-year. Out of these $80.8 million, $70.6 million came from advertising revenue and $10.2 million from subscription revenue. Advertising revenue increased 62% year-over-year and subscription revenue increased 38%. → Read More

    May 10th, 2012

    Pandora Competitor Senzari Raises $1 Million From 500 Startups & Angels To Fund Global Expansion

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    Miami-based streaming music startup Senzari, which aims to take on Pandora by targeting the markets Pandora misses (i.e., the rest of the world), has just closed an additional round of funding totaling $1 million. The round includes investors in both Miami and Silicon Valley, including, notably Dave McClure’s 500 Startups.

    The company had previously raised $2 million from undisclosed angels in… → Read More

    April 2nd, 2012

    Music Upstart Songza Co-Founders On Battling Pandora, Spotify

    Ever since I met the Songza guys at New York Tech Meetup, I’ve wanted to learn more about the app. It’s the first music service that I’ve been excited to use, mostly because it removes the work entirely. I’ve been curious about a few things, like how Songza plans to combat the big boys, namely Pandora, and how exactly these guys are making any money. Remember, Songza has no audio ads, no limits… → Read More

    March 6th, 2012

    Pandora Misses; Revenue Up 71 Percent To $81.3M But Swings To A Loss

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    Internet radio giant Pandora Media just reported fourth quarter results. The company posted revenue of $81.3 million, which was up 71 percent year-over-year. Non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.03. Analysts expected a loss of $0.02 a share, with revenue coming in at $83 million.

    Advertising revenue was $72.1 million, a 74 percent year-over-year increase. Subscription and other revenue was $9.2… → Read More

    February 29th, 2012

    Pandora Competitor Senzari Arrives In Spain With New Look, Facebook-Based Recommendations

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    Miami-based streaming music startup Senzari, backed by $2 million in angel funding, is continuing its international rollout today with an entrance into its third market since its U.S. launch into private beta last December. Today, the company is announcing that it’s dropping the invite-only status as it moves into Spain, where it has signed a strategic partnership deal with MTV Spain.

    The… → Read More

    January 5th, 2012

    Announcing The 2011 Crunchies Finalists And Tickets On Sale Now

    Crunchie Award photo by Susan Hobbs

    The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.

    For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks… → Read More

    December 13th, 2011

    Pandora Listening Jumps In Top Ten U.S. Radio Markets In November

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    Internet radio service Pandora has posted its November listening stats in the top ten radio markets in the U.S. The company says that it has seen Average Quarter Hour (AQH) gains in each of the top ten U.S. radio markets since September.

    Pandora says the gains ranged from 13 to 25 percent listening increases in each market with the biggest AQH gain of 25 percent occurring in the New York metro… → Read More

    October 18th, 2011

    Pandora’s Westergren: The Biggest Tectonic Shift In Music Is From Terrestrial To Personalized Radio

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    This afternoon at The Web 2.0 Summit, Pandora Co-founder Tim Westergren sat down with Fortune Editor Adam Lashinsky to talk about what’s going on at everybody’s favorite personalized radio platform. For those who may have missed it, Pandora recently enjoyed a relatively high-profile IPO, putting its “P” ticker symbol right smack in the middle of “IPO” — and the NYSE. And its stock has remained… → Read More