Clear Channel’s Pittman: iHeartRadio app is not about Pandora, kinda
When Pandora shares took a dive last week several people pointed out that its dip came soon after the number one U.S. radio company Clear Channel Inc launched a customized radio application announced with a press release which didn’t shy away from drawing comparisons with Pandora.
Of course those comparisons essentially said “look our service is waaay better than Pandora” and Clear Channel’s chairman of media and entertainment platforms Bob Pittman, couldn’t help but damn Pandora with faint praise in our interview.
Here are highlights of our chat with Pittman, a well -known AOL and MTV alum. (By the way, Pandora shares were back up 5 percent on Tuesday morning to $10.38).
MediaFile: You already had streaming radio stations, wasn’t that enough?
Bob Pittman: We’ve seen an opportunity to create what Pandora has called ‘custom radio’ probably more accurate to call it a playlist creator because there’s no personalities, no services like radio. But since they described it as custom radio they gave us brand permission to come in and add it as a feature to our service.
Mediafile: Why is your custom radio any different or better than Pandora?
from Entrepreneurial:
Note to entrepreneurs: Your idea is not special
-- Brad Feld is a managing director at the Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm Foundry Group. He also co-founded TechStars and writes the popular blog, Feld Thoughts. The views expressed are his own. --
Every day I get numerous emails from software and Internet entrepreneurs describing their newest ideas.
Often these entrepreneurs think their idea is brand new – that no one has ever thought of it before. Other times they ask me to sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect their idea. Occasionally the emails mysteriously allude to the idea without really saying what it is.
These entrepreneurs think their idea is special and magic. And they are wrong.
The great entrepreneurs are already focused on the implementation of their idea. They send me links to their website or software. They describe the business they are in the process of creating (or have already created). They point me to what they’ve done to implement their idea and show real users who validate that the idea is important. And they quickly move past the idea to the execution of the idea.
Google? Not the first search engine. Facebook? Not the first social network. Groupon? Not the first deal site. Pandora? Not the first music site. The list goes on. Even when you go back in time to the origins of the software industry: MS-DOS – not the first operating system. Lotus 1-2-3 – not the first spreadsheet.
The products and their subsequent companies became great because of execution. First, they had to execute on building a great product. Next, they had to execute on building a great business. Finally, they had to execute on scaling, sustaining, and evolving a great business.
Summed up perfectly here: “quickly move past the idea to the execution of the idea”
Great post!
TodayInMusic: Pandora adds Chernin and ex-Netflix CFO to board
Pandora, the popular Internet radio service, has expanded its board membership with two heavyweights of the media world: former News Corp no.2 Peter Chernin and former Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy.
The news will naturally stoke speculation that an IPO is indeed round the corner. Reuters reported last month that the company has met with bankers to discuss a $100 million public offering.
Chernin, wh0 left News Corp in early 2009, now runs his own business in Hollywood called The Chernin Group and Chernin Entertainment investing in media, entertainment and technology businesses.
McCarthy stepped down from Netflix in December after 12 years but has some background in the music business with a previous role at Music Choice.
A Pandora spokeswoman declined to confirm if either Chernin or McCarthy has made a personal investment in the business. To date the company has raised about $56.3 million according to various venture data sources.
Pandora founder Tim Westergren (pictured) says in a statement the company’s “very fortunate” to get these two names. He had a nice Q&A with us last month here.
(Photo: courtesy Pandora)
Today In Music: Q&A with Tim Westergren founder of Pandora
Q&A: Tim Westergren, Founder Pandora
Pandora is the leading Internet radio service in the United States with more than 75 million registered listeners claiming more than 50 percent of that market using its free service. It is one of the top five most download apps across smartphones and mobile platforms like iPhone, Android and BlackBerry according to Nielsen research with more than 50 million total mobile downloads.
It was launched on the Web in 2005 by Westergren and to date has raised more than $56.3 million through five rounds of funding according to TechCrunchwith backing from names like Greylock Partners, Hearst Interactive Media and Allen & Co.
Earlier this month sources told Reuters that Pandora has opened early conversations with bankers about a possible $100 million IPO . The company has declined to comment on any details of the potential offering.
Q: How is the business going right now?
Tim Westergren: Things are going great. We’re definitely at something of an inflection point, principally driven by the evolution of the connected system around us like cars and various consumer electronic devices. While they don’t individually represent big numbers relatives to computers and smartphones, just the fact those are becoming markets we can go after now is a very substantial change for us. It’s a big thing on our radar right now jumping on anytime anywhere distribution.
How does Pandora work in a car?
Newly funded Echo Nest tells music industry: “It’s the data, stupid”
Of the many ways the traditional music industry has struggled in the fast evolving digital music world has been understanding who is listening, why they’re listening , when and where they’re listening and find ways to build music-based products and services around that — especially since not as many people are buying music as they used to.
This is where The Echo Nest comes in. A start-up based in Somerville, Massachusetts is a self-described music intelligence company that powers music applications and services for developers and media companies based on data that it is automatically collates from millions of songs and music articles around the Web.
Chief Executive Jim Lucchese, a former music lawyer, compares one element of Echo Nest’s offering to the ever popular Pandora whose Music Genome Project indexed over 800,000 songs in a major labor of love which involved hundreds of musicians/analysts. He says Echo Nest’s technology is able to index millions of songs on any number of criteria in seconds.
Lucchese is convinced the music industry faces a huge problem of being able to understand more than 10 million songs online plus 3, 000 new songs and 15,000 music reviews added online everyday as well as the 700,000 unique users who access music online every minute.
“Music access is almost a commodity, the value has become about the experience whether through a game or a mobile application consumers have a much higher expectation and this requires a lot of data to enable it,” he said.
While you’re getting your head round the idea of the importance of data at least two venture capital firms seem to think that The Echo Nest is on to something important. Matrix Partners led a $7 million second-round of venture financing with existing investor Commonwealth Capital Ventures which was announced on Tuesday.
CES: Ford’s Mulally digs hands-free, in-car Pink Floyd
Here’s Ford CEO Alan Mulally getting excited about the new MyFord Touch in-car tech system, launched today at CES.
First attempt cut short by lack of Internet access. He’s not the first CEO bedeviled by tech problems at the show, after a power cut delayed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote on Wednesday evening.
Second take shows successful launch of hands-free Pandora Internet radio. Pretty cool, despite choice of dinosaur-rock station.
Whither Windows 7 and its (expected) wake?
A lot may be riding on the release of Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, which is due in October, not the least of which is an expected rush of advertising to support everything from the software itself, to the computers it will run on to the rival computers it will not run on.
This surge of business is seen coming just as the holiday shopping session gets under way and could help spark the economic turnaround that some suggest will come later this year.
Or maybe not.
According to a survey by ScriptLogic, six in 10 companies plan to skip buying Windows 7. Some will pass on the added cost of the upgrade, while others are concerned about compatibility with existing applications.
Perhaps consumers will be less squemish about Windows 7 than businesses. Then again, neither were exactly thrilled about Microsoft’s last upgrade — Windows Vista….
Keep an eye on:
- McGraw-Hill hires Evercore as bankers in effort sell BusinessWeek (Bloomberg)
- Pandora gets financing (TechCrunch)
- Microsoft’s Bing – so far so good, trafficwise (New York Times)
Yes, Vista sucked, most Windows O/S’s have sucked. But, even though there are much more stable O/S’s out there such as Fedora you are missing the most important factor.
Most people im sure that buy windows are gamers. Very few main release games will run on anything but Windows. So I dont think they will go the same way as Chrysler. There are too many gamers in the world that need this O/S to feed thier habit.
Unless of course all the PC gamers move over to consoles….BWahahahahahahahah, sorry lost my mind for a second there.
Sirius unveils iPhone App: reviews not so good (updated)
Sirius XM Radio has launched its long-awaited App for the iPhone to mixed reviews. That’s not surprising, really, since the legion of Sirius subscribers has never been sheepish about the pay radio service.
Many users like it, so they can get unique programming in a slick iPhone App. Now they can take Martha Stewart Radio, Road Dog Trucking and the Praise Channel with them anywhere. But you can’t listen to exclusive stuff like Howard Stern’s programming, or Major League Baseball games or the Nascar channel. Ouch.
It’s true that only a handful of channels are excluded (for rights reasons) versus the 120 channels one can listen to. But many Sirius XM subscribers are drawn to the service primarily for Stern, Baseball and the NFL, and they are not pleased. Of 421 user reviews on the iTunes App Store, 261 rate it 1 (out-of-5) stars, and its average is 2 stars. By contrast, online radio app Pandora scores an average 3.5 stars (from a much larger survey sample).
For every Sirius App comment that sounds like this from “Garfinkel”:
The app itself works pretty well. It’s been streaming without a glitch…” (3 Stars)
…there are three that read this way from “MXIKN”:
App shows great promise. Glad I didn’t renew my subscription cause there is no HOWARD. What are they thinking? I’m willing to renew if I can get Howard Stern. Many others will agree with me. Give us what we want. (1 Star)
Stern is not required for me to live. The only show that I miss by not having the Stern channels is Ferrall. Overall this is a great application and love it. There is more to Sirius XM than Stern, a lot more exclusive content than anywhere else.
