Content Matters: Music

October 26, 2025

Pandora Panic Premature

Pandora Yesterday, Pandora (NYSE: P) shares tanked on the news that Apple would be releasing iRadio, its long-awaited streaming music service in January of 2025.

While this is, of course, possible reason for concern, the reaction seems a bit overblown to me.

While Apple (AAPL) today is the 800 pound gorilla in digital music, it’s not clear to me that they will dominate streaming music for several reasons:

First, it’s not that easy. I’ve tested almost every music service out there and most are just not that good. I love Spotify, for the ability to play specific albums when I want, but when I want to pick a genre, not an artist, Pandora blows them away. I feel the same way about Apple Genius. It’s a convenient way to create an on-the-fly playlist when I’m at the gym, but the quality of their selections rarely matches Pandora.

Second, Apple’s track record at new things is spotty at best. Have we connected yet on Ping? Oh, that’s right, no one uses it. What about MobileMe? And how are you liking those new iOS maps? And while iTunes clearly revolutionized the digital music market, making it easy for novices to download legally, the interface feels dated today. Apple makes fantastic hardware. I am writing this on my MacBook Air and my iPhone and iPad are sitting on the desk alongside it. I love Apple hardware. But they haven’t yet proven that they can consistently deliver great apps or services.

Third is that this could certainly be a case where a rising tide lifts all boats. My daughter and I are big Pandora users, but my wife is not. Those who read this blog are likely pretty familiar with Pandora. But the mainstream user is not a Pandora user. If Apple puts its marketing muscle behind streaming music, that will do a lot to make it mainstream. And many of those new users will find their way to Pandora.

Last, and possibly most important is the existence of iTunes. iTunes today is an $8 Billion cash cow for Apple. Pandora set out to make the best possibly online radio offering and had no concerns of cannibalizing an existing product. Apple will have to carefully navigate the waters of cannibalization. Anyone who’s ever worked for a publisher knows how fears of cannibalizing the golden goose can drive companies to make dumb product decisions. Apple would prefer that streaming not exist, but it now has to enter the market to compete with Pandora, Spotify and others. In the perfect would, this new business unit would be given free run to create the best product on the market. But in reality, it will be constrained by not wanting to kill off an $8 billion cash cow.

Will Pandora withstand the entry of Apple? I think it will and could possibly thrive. With Apple behind it, streaming music will become a much larger business than it otherwise might. And if it continues to be the best product on the market, Pandora should receive a fair share of that business and grow much larger than it is today. And the downside risk is probably not very great. If Pandora struggles against Apple, there will be no shortage of suitors (Amazon, Facebook, Google) who would love to acquire them.

Barry Graubart on October 26, 2025 in Music, Social Media, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Apple, iradio, Pandora, Streaming music

July 29, 2011

Why Spotify and Pandora, not Turntable.fm, will win the streaming music market

There's never been a better time for music discovery than today.

In my college days, I was on top of all the newest, most obscure music. Those were the post-punk days and while most of SUNY Albany were listening to Bruce or the Dead, I was into the Chameleons, Echo & the Bunnymen, Ultravox, the Style Council the Replacements and more. When Kate Bush's Running Up that Hill got commercial airplay and everyone "discovered" her, I was devastated.

Since graduating college, my music discovery abilities have diminished dramatically, until recently. But today, rather than my informal network, I have a bunch of great tools which I use for music discovery. If I hear something I'd never heard before, I use Shazam to find out what it is. Then I can check out that band on Last.fm to hear some of their other work. For true discovery, I depend upon Pandora and music blogs like the Hype Machine. To find live music from bands I already love, I use Wolfgang's Vault. And I purchase digital downloads, mostly from Amazon.

Of course, two new services have gotten me excited, Spotify and Turntable.fm.

Now, I'd used Spotify heavily whenever I'd traveled to the UK. The ability to listen to whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to, was incredibly compelling. And, contrary to the music industry fears, it often prompted me to buy a digital download from Amazon.

Turntable.fm, on the other hand, is a very compelling social music service. You can start a room or enter someone else's room to find up to 5 DJ's queued up to play music. Participants vote on songs they like/disklike and there's a running chat commentary in the lower right. For those of us who spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours making and sharing mixtapes in college, Turntable.fm is perfect. But most people would rather just listen to music than to program it. I showed Turntable.fm to both my wife and daughter (admittedly a small sample) and neither of them got it. It was too much work and they had no interest in debating music. They just wanted it to play.

That's why I think Spotify and Pandora will win the streaming music market. My 12-year-old daughter likes Pandora and has set up a few channels and is quick to like/dislike a song to drive personalization. My wife runs Pandora on her iPad, though has done limited personalization. While neither of them have yet to install Spotify (they both listen mostly on mobile devices), I've no doubt they will do so in the coming months.

With both Spotify and Pandora, there is no need for the user to do any work. Typical radio listeners will find Pandora a natural fit. Just pick a channel and listen, perhaps adding likes, dislikes and skips. Those who'd more typically play a CD will find that same experience in Spotify. Mixtape creators will find a comfy fit with Spotify, where we can create and share playlists (like this Post-Punk playlist I've created). Of course, streaming music will be a crowded field, and Amazon and Apple will clearly be among the market leaders, but Spotify is a strong contender, with Pandora a likely acquisition target for one of them (Amazon?).

There's probably a niche for Turntable.fm but I don't see it ever getting widespread use. Most people view music listening as a passive experience and won't put in the effort that it requires.

Barry Graubart on July 29, 2011 in Content Business, Music, Social Media, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: music, Pandora, Spotify, streaming, Turntable.fm

March 30, 2011

Amazon Cloud Player – Good for the Market but Could Have Been Much More

Yesterday, Amazon (AMZN) announced the launch of its Cloud Drive and accompanying Cloud Player.

The launch is significant in many ways, while underwhelming in others. Overall, I think it’s a net positive for the market and for consumers but a bit of a speedbump on where I think they need to go.

Cloud Drive is a “music locker”. In other words, it’s a cloud-based storage system that allows users to store music they own in the cloud. In that sense, it’s very different from either iTunes (local storage) or streaming music apps like Rhapsody, Spotify, Rdio or even Pandora.

Music Lockers are hardly new. MP3.com launched back in 1997 and there have been other efforts since. The music industry sued (after all litigation takes less effort than innovation) and the small companies were destined to fail as a result.

With this new effort, the music locker model for the first time has a deep pocketed sponsor behind it, with Google and Apple (begrudgingly) likely to follow suit.

First the good news:

Amazon has placed a stake in the ground saying that they do not need permission from music publishers to enable users to store and access their music in the cloud. That’s a good thing for consumers and for the market as a whole. With Google and Apple likely to follow, this makes for a more competitive landscape for music.

Amazon digital downloads are DRM-free, so you’re not locked into any one provider. It will also put pressure on Apple to make all of their content DRM-free. This is something the record companies will fight (after all, in the past they’d gotten me to purchase vinyl and CD versions of Blonde on Blonde and would want me to keep doing so every time my music system changes) but it has to happen.

Amazon gives you 5 GB of storage for free and will bump that to 20 GB free for the first year if you buy any digital music through Amazon. That’s a smart move. Amazon has done a lot to try to break through in this space, offering a free daily download of holiday songs during December, as well as other promotions along the way. But it still is more difficult to use than iTunes. I buy most of my music via Amazon but my daughter mostly uses iTunes and my wife just asks me to get her what she wants.

Now the Bad:

To start, I’m not a fan of the music locker model at all today. It seems that streaming is a much more compelling solution for consumers AND the music industry. More on that below. But first, a few specific points about the Amazon solution:

It’s obvious that this is an effort to make Amazon a more viable competitor to iTunes. And that’s a good thing. I already buy most of my digital downloads through Amazon. But 5 GB (or even 20 GB) is hardly going to hold my music collection. I’d need the 100 GB plan, which costs $100 per year. That’s nearly the cost of a year’s worth of Rhapsody Premier.

I’ve got about 25 GB worth of Amazon digital downloads already. But there doesn’t seem to be any way to automatically have that music show up in my digital locker. It seems that I have to upload those files back to Amazon. That’s a lot of work for me (and doesn’t seem an effective use of Amazon’s bandwidth, as they could easily move it around on their own servers).

The functionality of the Cloud Player itself is meh. Gee, I can pick by artist, album, song or genre, or build a playlist. Hey, it’s the identical functionality that came in my iPod. My first iPod. Nearly ten years ago. Where’s the innovation, Amazon? Where are the social and music discovery aspects that I find in basic services like Spotify, last.fm, Grooveshark or Pandora, not to mention things like Listening Room, Imeem or other new apps? I’m a believer in Reid Hoffman’s rule #6 – “launch early enough that you are embarrassed by your first release” but not in a mature market like this. If Amazon wants to displace iTunes, it needs to show innovation (or at least show the ability to copy the innovation of others).

But back to the key point

Whether or not Amazon delivered on some of the functionality I’ve outlined above, the key point is that they missed the model. I’m not that keen on the idea of music lockers at all. A music locker is basically just a continuation of the model we’ve had for music for 100 years. Whether buying vinyl, 8 track, cassette, CD or downloadable digital tracks, the model remains the same. I purchase music to own, rather than paying a subscription fee to access music. That model just doesn’t make a lot of sense in a digitally connected world. Why should I have to make a “commitment” to an album just because I want to hear it now? There’s just as much money to be made in a well-managed streaming service and it’s much more consumer friendly in the long run.

I’m still hoping for a meaningful Spotify US release. I use them extensively when I travel and would gladly pay for a Spotify service here. In the meantime, I’ll continue to use a hybrid of Amazon digital downloads on my iPhone and a mix of Rhapsody and Pandora for streaming.

Barry Graubart on March 30, 2011 in Content Business, General Business, Mobile, Music, Social Media, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Amazon, cloud drive, cloud player, streaming music

November 20, 2008

Disintermediation of the Music Industry Continues

It's hardly news that the music industry has been imploding. But a few recent events point out just how weakened the traditional marketing and distribution platforms have become.

Later this week, Guns N Roses long-delayed album Chinese Democracy will be released exclusively via Best Buy. In the meantime, fans can stream the new album on the GNR myspace page. Metal band AC/DC struck a similar exclusive deal to sell their latest CD via Wal-Mart.

NPR has gotten into the game, with upcoming exclusive previews of a new CD from Paul McCartney and a 1968 live recording from Neil Young. When I read about the McCartney release, I clicked into the NPR page and was surprised at the depth of the NPR music site. I'm an NPR fan but really hadn't explored this part of their website previously. There's a great amount of content on the site including a mix of alternative, international and classic rock and jazz.

The music industry continues to evolve. And while it may not be healthy for the traditional players in the music industry, it seems to be pretty good for the consumer.

Barry Graubart on November 20, 2008 in Music | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: AC/DC, Guns N Roses, music, NPR

August 18, 2008

Music Biz, Still Broken, Calls in the Lawyers (again)

While people claim there's no way to make money in the music industry anymore, that's clearly not the case. The obvious way to make big money is to become a music industry attorney. The billable hours at counsel for the RIAA are shooting up again this week as they shut down music mashup site muxtape. Muxtape was a simple yet cool site that allowed you to create digital mix tapes; basically you upload a bunch of songs and your muxtape will play them in the reverse order of upload. The issue that the RIIAA has with Muxtape is that once created, you can share that digital mix with friends. In other words, it works just like the mix tapes that I made for dozens of friends back in college, though without all the tough work.

This news comes just as Pandora founder Tim Westergren, in an interview with the Washington Post, stated that the Company was close to pulling the plug on its music recommendation engine unless there is a change to the royalty fee structure for webcasting. Under current rules, online radio and webcast apps are set to double by 2010, providing a huge advantage to terrestrial radio. The timing couldn't be worse, as Pandora and Last.fm are among the most popular downloads for the iPhone and are really poised to take off. But music royalties could kill both their models.

At the same time, the record industry is killing its own business. These recommendation engines drive new music sales. I've downloaded dozens of songs from iTunes and, more recently, Amazon, after hearing them on Last.fm or Pandora. More than once I've gone back and bought a full CD after paying to download a few tracks, in essence, buying the music twice. Kill these engines and you lose a free marketing engine. Meanwhile, the record business continues to promote mostly lame pop acts from TV reality shows. That's not going to bring back your business no matter how many lawyers you hire.

Meanwhile, I find it interesting to note that the two most recent "albums" that I've purchased were digital download-only offerings with virtually no commercial support. Just this morning, I downloaded the new David Byrne/Brian Eno album "Everything That Happens" and a month or so ago I downloaded Feed the Animals from mashup DJ Girl Talk. The Girl Talk album was available at a "pick your price" option, while the Byrne/Eno CD was available with various options including FLAC. While this isn't a music review site, I'd say that the Byrne/Eno album on first listen is just as good as the stuff they collaborated on more than twenty years ago. And, for those who like a dance beat, Feed the Animals is one of my favorite albums of the year.

For a quick flashback, here's a clip one of my favorite Byrne/Eno songs from the past - Crosseyed and Painless from the great Remain in Light album.

Barry Graubart on August 18, 2008 in Content Business, General Business, Music | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Brian Eno, David Byrne, Last.fm, Music Industry, Muxtape, Pandora, RIAA

March 25, 2008

Litigate, Lobby and Legislate

It's not surprising that the radio industry are following the lead of their brethren in the music industry, when it comes to protecting their broken business models.
After the long, protracted process under which the Department of Justice finally acknowledged that combining XM and Sirius does not constitute a monopoly, the deal now goes to the FCC for review.

Clear Channel has apparently submitted a list of recommendations for the FCC to impose upon satellite radio as conditions for the deal's approval. At the top of the list: application of radio decency rules to be applied to satellite radio. As Engadget points out, that's the equivalent of requiring HBO to follow the requirements of broadcast television.

Henry Blodget argues that the FCC has outlived its usefulness and is just getting in the way.

After more than 15 months, this deal looks like it may finally get approved. Far from a monopoly, this deal now looks like it brings together two floundering, bit players in a highly competitive space. In addition to terrestrial radio, they will be competing with HD radio, iPods and all the emerging web technologies like internet radio (e.g. last fm), social networks such as MySpace and the music blogs. At the same time, as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft focus on local search, that will also eat into the revenues of terrestrial radio. Meanwhile, if the traditional players like Clear Channel want to effectively defend their turf, they should stop focusing on the legal tactics and give some thought to putting out a compelling product.

Barry Graubart on March 25, 2008 in Content Business, M&A, Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: m&a, satellite radio, sirius, xm

June 19, 2007

BandsInTown Mashes up Concert Schedules

Music continues to be one of the leading categories for emerging technologies.

This week marked the launch of mashup BandsInTown.

BandsInTown is an online community that lets users track concerts for their favorite bands. BandsInTown imports your music preferences from last.fm, then matches that to concert schedules from your geographic region. The resulting concert cloud helps you find upcoming shows you might not be aware of.

While the cloud can include acts you don't listen to, the larger items match to the ones that show up higher in your last.fm rankings. You can mouse over a link to see their upcoming shows in your area.

Clicking any of the bands brings you to a wiki-styled landing page which shows the upcoming show(s) but also has links to an artist page, maps to the venue and space for additional images or band info. All of these pages are designed for user-generated content.

The event awareness space is attracting attention with sites like eventful, Oodle's Bandtracker and others. What separates BandsInTown is its ability to import your last.fm preferences, its easy-to-navigate tag cloud and its focus on wiki-like features. I'd like to see them add a Facebook plugin to make it easier to share events with friends.

Thanks to Frank Gruber for the heads up on BandsInTown.

Barry Graubart on June 19, 2007 in Content Business, Music, social media, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Bands in Town, BandsInTown, concerts, events, music

May 30, 2007

CBS Buys Last.fm

CBS Corporation has acquired social media music site Last.fm for $280 million.

Last.fm today has roughly 15 million users of the largely free service, which takes a "wisdom of crowds" approach to music recommendations. While other services, such as Pandora, are compelling, what makes Last.fm so successful is the fact that it's not intrusive. Users simply download an iTunes plugin which monitors the music they play. For example, you can see the music I listen to on my last.fm page.

According to the press release,"The Last.fm management team will work with all relevant CBS divisions to apply their community-building and technology expertise to extend CBS businesses online and within the mobile space."

This acquisition, coming on the tail of the smaller Wallstrip deal, makes it clear that CBS is taking a more serious look at new technologies. It will be interesting to see whether they can leverage these new capabilities across their traditional businesses.

Barry Graubart on May 30, 2007 in Content Business, M&A, Music, social media, Social Media, Technology, user generated content, Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: CBS, Last.fm, M&A

January 21, 2007

Riding MySpace to the Top of the Charts

While the Arctic Monkeys have been credited (on this blog and elsewhere) with leveraging the web and social sites to launch their music career, they're not the only ones to have done so.

Next week, one of my favorite new performers, Lily Allen, will have her CD released in the United States. Lily Allen's ska-influenced alt-hip-hop has gained her a strong audience in the UK and I expect her to see similar success in the U.S. markets. Her music is tinged with sarcasm, humor and a bit of pretentiousness as might come from a 21-year old who seems wise beyond her years. While the song Smile was her first big UK hit, I prefer the darker LDN and humorous Knock em Out.

What makes the Lily Allen story unique is how she leverage social networks not only for publicity, but as an online focus group to shape her first CD, Alright Still. According to this Billboard article, Allen posted new tunes to her MySpace page, then gauged the feedback from her fans. In fact, that process helped her validate some of the songs against the advice of her record label. To reach that success, Allen apparently spent hours each night online, chatting with fans and reading their comments. While much was made last week of the new blog launched by 73-year old Marriott CEO Bill Marriott, that seems like just an online press release by someone who admittedly cannot type.

To really engage your audience using social software requires a significant commitment. Clearly, Lily Allen is an early success story of that process. For those who haven't heard her music yet, I'd suggest you give a listen at her website. For those looking at how to leverage technology to launch a new brand, you might learn a few things by following her path.

Barry Graubart on January 21, 2007 in Music, social media, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Lily Allen, music, MySpace, social software

August 22, 2006

A Fond Farewell to Tower

When I heard the news this morning that Tower Records was shutting its doors as it declared bankruptcy for the second time in two years, my heart sank. Tower had been a huge part of my music life for many years. The Greenwich Village Tower, on West 4th and Broadway, in particular had been a place to go, not only to buy CD’s, but to discover new bands and even meet new people. Prior to Tower’s opening the Village store in 1983, boutiques like Second Hand Rose and Bleecker Bob’s were my primary sources of music. Then came Tower, with its vastness and diverse collections, and it became my top music source.

Then, I thought about the last time I was actually in a Tower Records store. It was probably about three or four years ago, and then was simply to kill time before meeting a colleague for drinks nearby. I realized that, while I still buy some CDs, I’ve bought them almost exclusively from Amazon for the past 10 years. And today, I’m more likely to download music from eMusic or iTunes than to buy a CD, unless I know that I want the whole thing.

And while Tower once seemed a great place to discover music, that discovery process was mostly serendipitous. No one there knew my tastes, and they certainly didn’t store my listening patterns. Today, I’m much more apt to use Last.fm or the music blogs via Hype Machine to identify new music. While I might have been able to find Lily Allen’s Smile playing at Tower, it’s much easier to browse the blogs, listen to a few samples, then download a track or two.

While someone is likely to buy the Tower name, it’s unlikely that any buyer will retain their brick and mortar stores. And, while part of me wishes they could survive, I also realize that I'll hardly notice it when they're gone.

Barry Graubart on August 22, 2006 in General Business, Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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