

Pandora raises $35 million - quant
http://www.pehub.com/44380/pandora-tunes-into-35-million/

======
jpwagner
Don't get me wrong, I'm fond of Pandora's service, but isn't it strange that
our society loves to throw money at sinking ships.

Pandora has now been funded over $55MM and cannot possibly be profitable if it
boasts 70% of it's revenue goes to royalties.

Personally I'd also argue that these guys are hardly revolutionary. They have
not developed any different business model from radio, but still gripe about
lowering royalties. I'm not saying there's an obvious new way to distribute
music, but historically a company should succeed because of innovative
technology or an innovative business model, and their song attributes rated
by-hand by "music professionals" should not be considered innovative
technology.

But like I said, I'm fond of the service. They're pervasive and I'm personally
a daily user.

~~~
TomOfTTB
70% was under the old deal and they admit they weren't profitable under that.
The new deal is 25% of revenue or a song fee that increases each year (as
you'd have seen if you'd read the article's 4th paragraph)

As for revolutionary, I don't care. It's a good service. I show it to normal,
non-tech people and they almost universally start using it themselves. That
says it all for me.

~~~
potatolicious
> I show it to normal, non-tech people and they almost universally start using
> it themselves.

I have to quote this. The non-revolutionary stuff that nobody has for some
reason yet created is just as worthwhile as using the most newfangled tech for
some crazy application. Hell, I think I know more Pandora users than Twitter
users...

~~~
jpwagner
That is an absurd comparison.

Twitter series A: July, 2007

Pandora series A: March, 2000 (!)

Everyone's _thought of_ radio. Although, no one thought to brute force
categorization. I'm a daily user today, I fully expect to look back on pandora
in 4 years as an epic failure.

------
latortuga
Is the assertion that terrestrial radio "pays zilch" accurate? I've never
heard that and it actually surprises me.

~~~
e1ven
Before it was made illegal, music companies used to pay Radio Stations in
order to get their music on the air!

When Pandora/etc argue that it adds popularity to music, they aren't lying-
You can see this effect in the national music sales numbers-

Music used to be primarily local- A DJ in a regional market would start
playing songs, and they'd catch on in that area. You can track songs such as
Louie Louie, which started on the west coast and moved east.

------
antidaily
Is it me or has Pandora completely surpassed Last.Fm in terms of popularity?

~~~
windsurfer
Not in Canada, where we can't listen to Pandora, but we can listen to (the now
limited) Last.Fm.

