Pandora is a company that mainly makes its money through advertising deals on its streaming Internet radio service. But a growing portion of the business is also affiliate downloads of songs that users hear on Pandora and want to buy on either iTunes or Amazon’s MP3 service. And the biggest mover accelerating growth in that regard are downloads taking place on the iPhone.
Users are buying about a… → Read More
Letting people know what music you are listening to has long been a staple of the web. The blogging platform LiveJournal has long had the “listening to” field, instant messaging clients like iChat and Google Talk added the ability to update your status based on the song you were listening to a few years ago, and now people are using Twitter to send our their music selections. Blip.fm is the best… → Read More
One of the reasons that Internet music streaming services Pandora, imeem and Last.fm have been able to build large audiences is because they are run by people who have a passion for music. Or should I say, a passion for music beyond pop music. With Goom Radio, I’m not so sure.
Not only is Goom clearly trying to play the popular music card with a website littered with the likes of Coldplay, Kanye… → Read More
Free entertainment hub Boxee keeps on getting better and better. A couple of hours ago, the venture-backed startup released a full API that allows developers to build applications for the open-source platform using a set of API calls in Python and writing the GUI using XML. At the same time, the company is laying the groundwork for a richer App Box, which it refers to as an open application store… → Read More
SeeqPod, the popular “playable media” search service that many music sites use as the foundation for their core offering, has filed a petition for Chapter 11 yesterday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of California.
The company, which has raised $7 million in venture capital to date from undisclosed investors, is evidently doing this out of fear about the outcome of the … → Read More
Pandora just put out this video of their pre-production gaming handheld and so far, so good. The final production models will be black and this test model is white, so that they can stress points. The OS on Pandora handheld is Linux and the video shows Quake being played at full resolution of 800×480 at 60FPS. Looks pretty good. → Read More
VUDU seems to always be growing and expanding its Internet content and Pandora is the latest app on the device. It joins services such as Youtube, Picasa, Flickr but is the first Internet Radio app on VUDU and it seem to be a great implementation of the popular service. → Read More
There’s something wrong with CBS Radio’s press release announcing the launch, complete with silly “countdown,” of 92.3 Now FM in New York City, a contemporary hit radio station that will replace K-Rock on Wednesday, March 11, at 5:00pm. (Contemporary hit radio, in plain English, means garbage pop songs, distinguished by their use of auto-tune and use of lowest-common-denominator song-writing.)… → Read More
We have been watching the Pandora handheld gaming console with curious eye for a while. The latest pics finally show some hint of production quality unlike the last time the Pandora popped up. In fact, this model seems to be a skinned version of the last prototype running Ångström Linux on its 800 x 480 4.3-inch screen. (video demo after the break) Seeing this latest version digs at our game… → Read More
We’ve heard about the fabled Pandora handheld emulation device for a while now and maybe, just maybe, it will hit the market before we lose interest. This prototype looks similar to the early renderings which is great cause it seems like the perfect, pocketable size. All the specs are reportable the same too, but now we can see the little guy in action with the video after the break. → Read More
Music recommendation engine / social network Last.fm has launched an official, feature-rich application for the Android platform that enables users to stream radio stations (including personalized streaming radio), consult up-to-date concert information and also offers the ability to track users’ listening habits based on their Last.fm profile.
The company says the application should be available… → Read More
Pandora Radio, the cool personalized radio station that recommends songs based on its Music Genome Project, has started serving audio ads. The high royalty costs associated with streaming licensed songs seem to have finally caught up to the service, which until now has primarily used image-based advertising. The ads seems to be fairly sparse, but have received enough attention that the… → Read More
MOG demo’d the next version of their popular music service to me today, and I was impressed. It combines a best of breed interface with free on demand streaming and a Pandora-like music recommendation engine. The trouble is, it may never launch because only two of the four major music labels are supporting it so far.
MOG has a history of doing cool new things around music. The service today… → Read More
Pandora Radio, the personalized internet radio service that has remained among the most popular iPhone apps on the iTunes App Store since its inception in July (and that I’ve previously called the iPhone’s killer app), will be releasing its most significant update yet later today.
Dubbed Pandora 2.0, the application will now include artist biographies, streaming samples for songs you’ve… → Read More
At the beginning of each year I traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. This is the fourth year I’ve done this – previous lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. You guys get to pick the winners of the Crunchies – this list is all mine.
This is a list of the products I tend to use daily. Some are for work (Wordpress, Delicious, Zoho, etc.), some are for fun (MySpace Music, Hulu, etc)… → Read More
Last night we released the finalist names for the Crunchies Awards. Vote here for who you think should win. We’ve set up a site that is pretty self-explanatory, with all of the names of each finalist for every category, along with links to their Websites and Crunchbase profiles where you can learn more about each one before voting. The Crunchies represents the best the Web had to offer in 2008… → Read More
Just in via Twitter: Pandora has registered its 20 millionth user. The three-year old music streaming service is trying to hold its own despite tough economics and recent layoffs.
Its music-recommendation engine pumps out personalized radio stations over the Web, and its iPhone app remains one the top free apps on iTunes (currently No. 21). → Read More
More than two years ago, Pandora began working on a Windows Mobile client for their personalized music streaming service. Right as that project was entering alpha, they penned distribution deals with AT&T and Sprint, who both had one requirement: it needed to work on their standard, run-of-the-mill feature phones. With their relatively small development team, Pandora shifted their efforts to… → Read More
Today, CBS Interactive is laying off people across several of its properties, I’ve confirmed with the company. CBS is not saying which divisions or how many people are affected. It is positioning the layoffs as part of the integration process it began six months ago when it bought CNET for $1.8 billion. But it is not just the CNET businesses that are being cut.
I’ve also confirmed that… → Read More
Indie music download subscription service eMusic is getting an overhaul. Individual artist an dalbum pages already have more of an AJaxy feel and incorporate YouTube videos and Flickr photos. On Friday, its homepage switched over to a new design centered around a new recommendation engine powered by MediaUnbound. Now, when you sign in as a member, you are presented with a grid of “Music You’ll… → Read More
Music-streaming service Pandora joins the growing list of startups laying off employees to survive in a worsening economy. The company let go 20 people yesterday, or 14 percent of its staff. Founder Tim Westergren broke the news in a blog post:
This is a very sad day for Pandora, and for me personally. Today we reduced our staff from 140 to 120 employees. Like virtually every company, Pandora… → Read More
A recent update to the net-connected Chumby device adds Pandora Radio as an option under the Music menu. Check out the above video for a quick demonstration of everything. It’s pretty straightforward – you’ll need to reboot your Chumby to get it to show up initially but once that’s done, you’ll find the Pandora option amongst the other available music sources. Then, simply enter your… → Read More
I love these little open handhelds. The GP2X has been the standard for a while, but the Pandora looks to be the new king of the hill. You can order one now for $329, and various accessories as well (not in America? click here). There are only 3000 available in the first batch, and no more will be ready until ’09, so be quick about it and get yourself an early Christmas present. → Read More
You remember the Pandora, right? The awesome open source handheld that’s going to play everything from Defender to Quake III? Well, its time is drawing near! Pocketgamer has an interview with Craig Rothwell, one of the guys in charge of the Pandora project, and it’s an interesting story (if a short interview). The great thing about this project is that it was essentially open source… → Read More
Oh man, I really wish that was me testing the sucker out. In case you missed it when they first put out renders, the Pandora is a powerhouse open-source handheld in the spirit of the GP32 and GP2X (which I have). It’s got dual analog sticks, an 800×480 screen, full QWERTY, wi-fi, and a bunch of other stuff. It basically looks like the definitive homebrew and emulation device, and it… → Read More
Yesterday, CBS sent out a press release touting the success of Last.fm’s month-old redesign, citing a 20 percent increase in unique visitors and a 36 percent increase in total minutes between June and July. Despite a few bugs on the day of launch, the redesign seems to be paying off. But why is CBS so keen on beating its chest when it comes to Last.fm? Ever since CBS bought Last.fm in May… → Read More
Pandora’s internet radio has always been one of those sites that was really cool in concept, but too inconvenient to ever go mainstream. The service was long tied to computers only, and while it eventually expanded to special internet radios and some mobile phones, it still has yet to become a household name. But with the launch of Pandora’s new iPhone app last Friday, it looks like… → Read More
It’s not official quite yet, but the iPhone App Store is live and you can download version 2.0 of the iPhone software – which is all you need to run the 552 applications currently available. We’ve been gathering videos and overviews of many of the applications and have held them until now. We received demo vidoes for dozens of applications, ranging from basic games to complex… → Read More
Personalized radio service Pandora has taken the plunge and released an AIR application into beta that allows users to play music from Pandora without opening the browser. When I first heard of this development, I thought it was such a cool idea. Music playback is one of those things that really doesn’t need a full browser experience; just give me a simple control panel to enter songs, play… → Read More
Sonific, an online music playing servuce similar to Pandora and Seeqpod, is to close May 1 as the company was unable to obtain licensed music rights in a way that made the service viable. Gerd Leonhard, Co-Founder & CEO writes: 1) There are countless startups providing access to any and all music streams without any license whatsoever. However, when we approached the major record label… → Read More
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