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Why iTunes Radio Could Take Down Pandora
cagraham writes "Pandora has been the standard for internet radio since it launched in 2000, and just announced the appointment of new CEO Brian McAndrews. They claim they're not worried about Apple, but iTunes' massive user base (575 million), content deals, and cheaper pricing options should give them legitimate reason for concern. Can Pandora survive iTunes Radio? Do a-la-carte options like Spotify make any internet radio service irrelevant?"
Cannot use Pandora in the UK and haven't heard any friends using it in Europe, so I wouldn't call it a standard.
So we had the 64 bit "story" yesterday, and now an even less believable claim which relies upon the notion that the iPhone is the most common phone platform, used by nearly all music listeners. Somehow I think that, while Pandora and Spotify et al have their commercial threats, this isn't one of them.
Either way, it's kinda sad that this passed through Slashdot's slashvertisement filters.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If it's something that doesn't reduce the machine to a crawl, maybe it'll have a chance. I want a small player, maybe even a plugin to winamp, that once authenticated, just plays in the background. Use a webpage to manage playlists if need be.
Anything but the monstrosity of iTunes.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Pandora and Spotify work on every platform... yet iWhatever only works on one that has a very small share of the total mobile market. I think they can survive just fine if they are selling something people want.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
It'll be all of the post-iTunes competitors that decide to enter the market now that Apple has.
Why loose time on useless time wasting speculation ?
Certainly they're concerned, but honestly, the drones that follow every whiff of apple are going to do just that. There's no convincing them that anything not-apple is any good, it's nigh unto a religious zeal, so that audience has ALWAYS been lost to anyone not named Jobs.
Nevertheless, this has equally spawned a smaller but dedicated cadre of apple-haters, who will use any service that ISN'T apple for a number of reasons.
Personally, I think one could have a comfortably successful business based solely on the latter. No, your customers wouldn't be the prius-driving, precious metrosexual intelligentsia, but I think Pandora could survive without them.
-Styopa
Since getting Spotify Premium a bit over a year ago, I haven't used Pandora, iTunes, or even my iPod. It has almost everything I could possibly want to listen to. Basically, it rules.
unless i can access itunes radio without installing an app, pandora wins automatically for that. also, not buying an ifon5
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I find the summary nearly trollish. There is no standard bearer in internet radio, and if there were, I don't think Pandora would be it. Yes, lots of people use Pandora. Lots also use Last.fm, and/or listen to the tens of thousands of independent internet radio stations out there - many of which are actually, I believe, much more in the spirit of "radio" than automated algorithmic music-recommendation services like Pandora and Last.
I say these indie stations (House of Sound is one that I co-founded, and I currently DJ at Radio 23 - there are thousands of others) are more in the spirit of radio, because they actually have live DJs, "spinning" (sometimes literally) records, mp3s, YouTubes, even cassettes, on a constant basis. These "stations" are interactive to a degree that music recommendation services are not - they are inflected by the taste of the DJ, many have live-chat or call-in features, and they are in real time.
My conclusion is that neither Pandora nor Last.fm are actually "radio" at all. Pandora recommends music to a listener based on pseudo-scientific analysis of what a person listens to (key, tempo, tone, volume, etc.) and Last uses the Amazon social model (x people who listened to y track also listened to z). I find, personally, Last's social model to be more effective for me than Pandora's algorithmic approach. Neither are radio. Radio, to me, whether based on radio waves or not, is a real person exposing their tastes, quirks, personality and even mistakes.
Look for Google to buy Pandora, Spotify or some other service. Internet radio/music streaming seems like a viable option for Google to deliver ads to.
I get so much value out of Pandora I have to pay them for the service because it's just so good. You should too if you use it. There isn't a need for me to buy or download music anymore.
The (minor) advantage of iTunes radio is that you can tap to buy a song while it's playing. That's their angle with the service being free (ads aside). You steer the broadcast in the direction you want, they provide you with suggestions. So from what I understand, it's basically Pandora with in app song purchasing. The disadvantage for someone like me: while I have both a Mac and and an iTunes account, I use an Android. If Apple really wants to hit hard with this, they will need to come out with an Android app that lacks the song purchase option, or create iTunes for Android with the ability to sync to a Mac - neither of which I see happening. Their market share might be immediately large, but it is also limited right out of the starting gate.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
iTunes was good 6 major releases ago: iTunes 4. Every release since then has gotten slower and more bloated than the last. Yecch.
This is the uphill battle Apple faces: the client is a pig.
A lightweight client (ala Google Music) has a much greater chance for success.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Are you telling me that people PAY for pandora?
Both can do well. But Pandora needs to grow rapidly globally
unfinished: (adj.)
Well, since iTunes Radio only works on Apple Devices, and Pandora works everywhere, I would not be too worried.
It is the same way in which iTV took down the cable providers. Oh wait...
If not, she'll open her box.
Thanks to the greedy bastards at the BPI who priced them out of the UK.
What they really couldn't stand was a competitor to their pay-to-play model which ensures their 'investment' gets played 4 times a day on a ubiquitous medium.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
This is 2013. I haven't used pandora in years.
itunes radio is only going to serve the apple crowd.
There's many more users than the apple crowd.
So, pancakes on a rabbit.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Not to mention the increasing popularity of copyright free music such as found on streaming services like Jamendo and Magnatune
How do people discover these services and these free-culture-supporting bands in the first place? Not everybody has a data plan, a car stereo with an AUX input, and the motivation to keep plugging an audio cable into the phone. This means people keep discovering RIAA bands through the convenience-by-default of in-car FM radio.
iTunes on Windows blows chunks. I assume that it's better on OSX, but it's ugly and bloated and generally gets uninstalled from my computer within hours of when I install it.
There are some nice features to it, but I have yet to find a feature that iTunes has which isn't done by somebody else better.
I am meaning, all the way back to when Apple started running the Apple 2 Clonemakers out of business with lawsuits.
The only reason those lawsuits happened in the first place is that the Monitor ROM (the BIOS of the Apple II) used entry points at fixed addresses in $F800-$FFFF. Fixed entry points mean that the implementations of BIOS routines have to be the same length in bytes as the existing routines, which pretty much ensures that only one specific copyrighted implementation will work. The IBM PC BIOS was more easily cloned because it used a proper syscall mechanism.
Please take your own advice, AC.
I've used 3 iphones, now using android for 1 year. its pretty cool.
Personally, I still enjoy "traditional" radio or XM, but as for Internet radio, Slacker's done an amazing job. Real people behind the music, the Artist Takeovers on 90's alternative are entertaining, the eccentricness of the Swami Soundsystem, and festival-based radio with interviews with the artists are among the reasons why Slacker's my main choice.
I like original radio programming with interesting personalities, but commercials kill it and Sirius/XM was too cumbersome. Pandora, iTunes, and Spotify lack that, in my opinion.
It's free, with occasional donation requests.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Considering the lack of an iTunes app for Android (and how awful a hackjob the Windows port is) I think it's fair to assume this will only be available on iOS. If so, Pandora isn't going to lose the Android market by default.
"Take Down", in general, refers to a DMCA or similar violation, where the legal system removes a web site. This is NOT what you meant.
Try "Why iTunes Radio Could Defeat Pandora".
Just out of interest.
Isn't using your monopoly in one area (online music sales) to leverage your entry into another market (online radio) the definition of abuse of monopoly ?
1) itunes radio is free. if you have an itunes match subscription ($25/mo, does a variety of things) then there are no ads even.
2) itunes radio is only for iOS right now. you listen to it on your phone or ipad. has nothing to do with the desktop itunes software or windows (you'e still on windows?)
I pay for the premium Pandora service because they send high quality audio. I then have an app that extracts all of the MP3s and saves them to disk. Yep, I am sure everyone will think I am a shitty person for it. However, there have been a few artists that I bought the entire album because it was really that good.
1) There are enough it's-Apple-therefore-I-hate-it types out there that there will always be a market for an iTunes Radio alternative. Those people have existed ever since there WAS an Apple, they're not going away, and they listen to music too.
2) Spotify is fine for accessing music I already know about and like. But I have most of that in my iTunes library already. So I wound up canceling my premium account. Where Pandora really shines is in introducing me to new artists/songs/albums that I'll probably like based on my tastes. So Pandora is still one of my most-used.apps. I've no idea if iRadio will replace it. But it definitely fills a void that Spotify doesn't. So, no threat there.
Imagine all the people...
$25/year
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
iTunes on the Mac also "blows chunks". It a kitchen sink grab bag that has grown by just sticking stuff on with glue. Ugly, confusing interface that tries to do too much and does nothing well.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I still use it, though, because I haven't found another solution that:
- Organizes my music and lets me rate it
- Plays over synchronized remote speakers (like Airplay)
- Allows itself to be remote-controlled from Android, iOS, etc.
I'd love to move my music to my FreeBSD server, but right now I'm stuck leaving my computer on all the time and serving it from there. Allplay (the Qualcomm effort to compete with Airplay) has me hopeful, though Airplay has already been reverse-engineered.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Bug or not, there are currently ads on iTunes Radio for paid accounts. I've been getting them off and on all day.
Pandora easily works across all platforms, itunes is fairly limited. Andriod devices, smart tvs, gaming devices, set top boxes can use pandora but unlikely to ever get itunes.
yes, accurate, thanks for the correction. $25/mo would be a lot! brain fart.
maybe a developer release thing? considering it's not publicly available, then it's not really a "bug" yet.
I've been using Pandora since shortly after launch. I've been using iTunes Radio since the beta launched.
Generally I prefer iTunes Radio, although there are some custom stations I've made in Pandora that I can't seem to get the same level of match quality in iTunes Radio. Usually the opposite is true though, the stations in iTunes seem to be better matched and have more songs rotating.
It's also hard to beat that iTunes Radio is commercial free with iTunes Match, which I have anyway, so it's just a bonus. On the other hand, Pandora's premium service without ads is incredibly dirt cheap.
For me, it all depends on what Apple wants to do with content as a business. If it uses content to sell hardware, then I'd imagine iTunes Radio will be iOS and iTunes (Mac/Windows) only. However, if Apple discovers that content can be a worthwhile business in of itself, it could license iTunes Radio and make it available on other platforms (as well as their TV shows, movies, and other content).
If they license, then great, my Sonos system will likely get iTunes radio as well as the bazillions of other smart devices I have which get Pandora now. In that case Pandora (and others would likely die).
The reason is that if Apple licenses iTunes Radio or develops apps for a broad range of non-Apple platforms, Apple will have a mega-advantage in several ways besides just the brand advantage. Apple already has bazillions of credit cards active on file with Apple IDs making it very easy for people to join in. Apple has bazillions of people buying music every day and has been tracking their purchases through Genius Playlists for years now, so they have a huge-ass database of matched music and are well equipped to provide better smart stations. Apple also has the ability to bundle advertising with other ad sales, instead of just having it be a smart radio ad buy. And of course Apple makes money through increased music (and other content) sales as well as feeding the overall ecosystem. I just don't see how anyone could compete with that, unless Apple just decides not to license or build on other platforms.
Eat a big niggerdick since you like niggers so much. Niggers coons jigaboos!!
This means people keep discovering RIAA bands through the convenience-by-default of in-car FM radio.
There is an ancient device called a radio that plays all manner of music
In my experience, a radio doesn't "play[] all manner of music". It plays only music published by labels big enough to afford payola, and this music is inevitably non-free.
Given I've never used Pandora, it's hard for me to accept calling it a standard. But then I like to play songs I choose on my own, from USB drives or an ancient iPod or whatever. I'm not sure I even know what Pandora is supposed to give me that I don't already have.
It seems to me, the main thing wrong with commercial radio is the idea that somebody at a station (or these days, a software package) plays songs in the order they dictate and you sit there passively consuming it. Pandora seems awfully similar in concept, except they promise to make it more tailored. But it's still giving up control. See above. I make my own playlists and stock them. There is nothing anybody can supply to me that is more relevant to me than my own choices.
And, I have no interest in what passes for mainstream domestic US music. I listen to stuff from other countries not served by Pandora. Highly doubt Pandora could come close to supplying what I want to hear.
But it streams!!! So does AmazonMP3 and Google Music both using tracks I supply to them. For streaming audio, I do use Shoutcast streams which play on many apps, and iHeartRadio for local news.
Sig for hire.
DLNA?
Pandora doesn't have the selection I want, and I'm not an apple user so I wont use iTunes.
I have other places to buy mp3 cds and my music discovery of choice is Spotify.
Amusing my car has a pandora app, but I use bluetooth to stream spotify music and metadata.
So again, how is Pandora and iTunes the standard?
Wall Street obviously thinks iTunes is no threat.
Pandora does have some and much work to do.
However, iTunes is a 'back-uped Toilet' of a 'service.'
And with the current Apple 'inteligencia', rather lack there of at Apple, Pandora has an open field to score a goal at the opposite end of the field without opposition.
Go Pandora.
Everyone hated Myspace so when Facebook popped up, they hopped on it. Everyone hates Pandora because of the "skipping" policy and obnoxious and repetitive ads. Apple doesn't release products that aren't annoying, overcontrolled, and generally a bad user experience to enable huge profits for themselves. Because of that, they will never go anywhere. Take their pathetic Facebook knock off mobile.me as an example. It was too "Appled up" for anyone to use it.
No. It won't sync audio, so if you have two zones in audible range (say "living room" and "kitchen") you will hear a very annoying echo between them. Sonos gets this right and Airplay (mostly) gets it right. The open-source Airplay clone Shairport doesn't quite have it right, but you can screw with the buffer until it is good enough. Allplay does it in theory, but I don't have any devices (or music players) to test it.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This is mostly happening in the mobile space.
I quit listening to Pandora a couple of years ago. I got damned tired of the audio/video commercials.
You can't escape commercials. The TV Channel is now showing 20-minute programs in a 36-minute time slot. And what fills those extra 16 minutes? COMMERCIALS, of course.
I listen to most of my music on YouTube, but I'm about ready to give YouTube the finger also. Why? COMMERCIALS, of course.
Fata viam invenient.
I'm probably a minority music guy but I've bought and paid for BOTH Spotify and Pandora. Why? Because they have different use-cases and excel at different things. I use Pandora to find new music and for casual listening. Their algorithm is specifically designed for this use case and its fantastic at it. I've tried Spotify's radio service, it sucks. It plays the exact same music constantly. I actually did an apples-to-apples comparison on this one. I took my Spotify Starred list (around 250-300 songs spanning multiple genres (rock and roll, 60s rock, 70s glam, funk, bluegrass, 80s electronic/synth pop, grunge, alternative, indie, punk) and eras (1950s-current)) and made a radio station out of it; after I grew tired of the station I imported that exact same list (more or less, the libraries of the two services aren't identical) of songs into Pandora. The Pandora station is leaps and bounds better. It manages to hit all the genres and I've found something that I can listen to pretty much continuously and even better I'm exposed to new-to-me music.
Spotify I use when I've found something new and I want to listen to it again, or listen to the other songs made by that artist. As a discovery platform Spotify sucks; but as a research platform, Spotify is great.
Sorry, but that must be total users. active users would be a very different measurement. I've got an account, and my wife has an account. We switched to Android, but I bet we're still being counted.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
iTunes runs like crap on Windows, I don't know of anyone that would want to leave it running on their computer just to listen to a radio service. If it were separated out into a separate app I could see it being a threat but until then it won't get much traction. From what i've seen on various Twitch stream it would appear that Spotify is a bigger threat to Pandora. Hardly any young people even seem to know that Pandora exists, but plenty of gamers are running Spotify in the background. It's mostly just Linux geeks I know of that use Pandora
Out of curiosity, what do you use to manage your media library instead?