Last week, Spotify turned five years old, and to celebrate, the company released a batch of impressive data. But buried within the fun facts is a tidbit that’s just as depressing as it is surprising: 20-percent of Spotify tracks have never been streamed.
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Having a hard time making it in the internet radio space? Maybe you should take a feather from the cap of a firm that still rides the airwaves. That seems to be Rdio’s approach — according to the New York Times, the company is partnering with Cumulus Media (a company that owns for-real radio stations) to create a free version of its audio streaming service. Rdio will also trade a stake in its parent company, Pulser Media, for chunks of Cumulus programming and promotion on the traditional airwaves. Cumulus will sell ads for Rdio’s impending free service, as well as compile playlists from its catalog of syndicated programming. This could buffer Rdio’s music library with news and talk shows, which will hopefully give the service a competitive advantage over services like Spotify, Pandora and iTunes Radio. Although the deal doesn’t involve a cash exchange, the Times reports the value of Cumulus’ services at over $100 million. As for that free Rdio overhaul? It’s predicted to be out sometime before the end of the year. The deal will be officially announced on Monday, until then, check out the NYT report at the source link below.
Filed under: Misc, Portable Audio/Video
Source: NYT
Remember a few months ago when Pandora announced
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There’s nothing quite like a 180, and that’s what Pandora plans to pull as next month rolls in. The outfit’s 40-hour mobile listening limit, which was established back in February, will be history in September. The move was announced today by CFO Mike Herring, as he stated the following:
“When we introduced the 40 hour mobile listening limit, we were confident that our scale — over 7 percent of total radio listening and Pandora’s number one ranking in most major markets — would allow us to take this action without impacting our key monetization initiatives in driving the disruption of the radio advertising market and driving our mobile advertising leadership. As our results have shown, the continued strong growth in our advertising revenue allowed us to cover the increased royalty costs with dollars left over to invest back into the business. With these tools in hand, and insight into how they work, we are resetting our levers in September.
Notably, Pandora plans to eliminate the blanket 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1st. In the 6 months since we first implemented the free mobile listening limitation, we have gained critical insights into our user population that has given us greater control of our business. Because of these insights Pandora has implemented both other surgical levers to control content cost and new features that will allow for greater product usage.”
It’s not clear why the the reversal is being made — be it uproar from loyal users or something else entirely — but those who found themselves perturbed by such a notion will have plenty to celebrate in just a few days.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Mobile
Source: TechCrunch
In the future, streaming radio stations will be so sophisticated that they’ll know based on all sorts of factors exactly what it is you want to listen to. We’re not quite there yet, but Rdio—our favorite streaming radio service
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iHeartRadio is the free streaming audio service of choice primarily for people who love terrestrial radio, and want to be able to get these stations over the web. (Yes! Millions of these crazy people exist.) But until now, the service has lacked one of the the core components of the airwaves: babbling voices. No more!
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Pandora announced in May 2012 it had surpassed 150 million registered users, and nearly a year later, the company is announcing it has added 50 million more registered listeners to reach the 200 million user milestone.
Pandora’s streaming-radio service launched back in 2005, which makes this milestone quite the accomplishment considering they’ve been at it for 8 years now. It was at their six-year mark where they reached 100 million mark, which also shows just how fast their growth has been lately as it only took two years for the company to hit an additional 100 million users. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Play Store Receives Redesign To Help Discover Content Easier, Apple Patent Connects iPhone To Mac Automatically Through Proximity System, 
Microsoft has just outed Data Sense, a new app for Windows Phone 8 that helps ensure you don’t burn through your data plan. On top of tracking your usage app-by-app, it compresses every single web page you browse to keep data consumed to a minimum, and also sniffs out WiFi hotspots when they become available. The app features a Live Tile to give an ongoing saga of the megabytes you’ve consumed and will warn you near a preset limit. Redmond claims the hotspot sniffing and compression will let you consume 45 percent less data “when compared to the competition” — likely a reference to iOS and Android, which already have a similar feature. Data Sense will arrive first on Verizon this fall, but there’s no word yet on when other carriers will have it. To check the PR, go past the fold.
For more, check out our Windows Phone 8 event liveblog!
Continue reading Microsoft unveils Data Sense for Windows Phone 8, to debut on Verizon devices
Microsoft unveils Data Sense for Windows Phone 8, to debut on Verizon devices originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Microsoft knows that Windows Phone 8 is only as successful as its apps. To that end, it’s blowing the doors open in terms of major app support. It’s not only promising a Windows Phone version of Pandora Radio for early 2013, it’s offering ad-free listening for the first year. How’s that for strong out-of-the-box content? On top of this, Microsoft is vowing a slew of new apps and games that had previously only been available in the Android or iOS camps, including Asphalt 7, Cut the Rope, Temple Run, Urbanspoon and Where’s My Water. By the time the expansion is done, Microsoft hopes to have 46 out of the 50 most popular apps onboard, making any platform switch that much gentler. Instagram is a notable omission — still, it’s a big leap in terms of equality.
Update: If you need even more detail, Microsoft has posted a wider list of new apps as part of its official Windows Phone 8 launch post. If that’s not enough, you can catch a video overview of the platform after the break.
For more, check out our Windows Phone 8 event liveblog!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft
Windows Phone 8 gets Pandora Radio, Cut the Rope, Urbanspoon and more (update: full list) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you’re an Android-toting SiriusXM fan, you’ve probably spent the last month wondering when your smartphone would get the newfound flexibility to tune in beyond live radio. As of Sirius XM’s version 2.2 update, Android is back on equal footing. The upgrade supplies On Demand streaming, both for catch-up and the occasional classic, as well as downloadable copies to keep the music and talk flowing offline. As before, the access is considered a free perk of a SiriusXM subscription; if you enjoy Howard Stern’s cynicism enough to want it at odd hours of the day, your angsty fix awaits at the source.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
SiriusXM for Android update brings On Demand and offline listening originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Sep 2012 06:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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