Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Pandora

Music Streaming Service Senzari Raises $2 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:57:23 +0000

Senzari is a music streaming service that competes with Pandora. Pandora’s biggest complaints is that their music catalog is too small and it is not available outside of the U.S. Senzari is a Miami-based music streaming service that recently launched in the U.S. and Brazil with plans to expand into Latin America, Spain, and Australia.

Pandora currently offers a catalog of 900,000 songs and Senzari launched with over 10 million. Senzari has Facebook integration including live chat with Facebook friends. Senzari raised $2 million in funding from undisclosed angel investors in Silicon Valley and Boston. A private equity group in Southern California also participated in this round. This is Bill Hajjar’s fourth start-up.

Why launch another streaming music radio service? About “80% of the U.S. market would rather have a lean-back experience,” stated Hajjar. Hajjar believes that people just want to enjoy music and discover new bands instead of building playlists.

Senzari decided to focus on taking Pandora on by hitting their weak spots. Senzari has a strategic partnership with RED Viacom, Nickelodeon, VH1, MTV, and Comedy Central.

[TechCrunch]

The Debt Crisis Puts Future Tech IPOs In A Turbulent Market

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:28:05 +0000

Some of the technology companies that have filed to have an IPO this year includes Zillow.com, Zynga, Groupon, and LivingSocial. Given Pandora and LinkedIn’s success on their recent IPO, it provided positivity and excitement for the aforementioned companies to go public. However today’s economy gives the stock market an entirely different perspective.

The United States has a weak economy and is facing a debt crisis. The United States had lost its top credit rating for the first time in history due to the debt crisis. This directly affects what happens on Wall Street. Amazon.com’s market valuation dropped below $100 billion and Apple’s stock price dropped below $400 again on July 26th. LinkedIn’s stock was recently downgraded as well.

Even though Wall Street is in a volatile state, the market is showing signs of strength. According to Renaissance Capital, the number of offerings is up 15% to 93. The proceeds have more than doubled to $28.5 billion. These offerings have grown due to many technology companies. Due to the strength of the recent technology IPOs, I believe that current economic conditions will not deter companies like Groupon, Zynga, Zillow, and LivingSocial to postpone. All of these companies have been successful in their respective market shares.

[TechFlash]

Pandora Now Has 100 Million Registered Users

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 03:36:48 +0000

Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE:P) has hit 100 million registered users. About one-third of their users access Pandora on a monthly basis. Pandora has a 3.6% market share of all radio listeners in the U.S. Pandora.com plays music that is similar to song suggestions that a user enters. As the user enters positive or negative feedback for songs, Pandora selects songs to play in the future.

Pandora Stock Price Increases 60% After Opening, Closes At 9% High

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:20:16 +0000

Internet radio company Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) has gone public today. Pandora priced their shares at $16. Pandora opened at $20 and jumped to $26. This is an increase of over 60%.

At the point of mid-day trading, Pandora fell below $20. Pandora is currently losing money, but they raised $235 million with the $16 offering price. At the time of the offering, Pandora was valued at $2.6 billion. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citigroup were the lead underwriters of the IPO.

Pandora hit about 90 million listeners at the end of April. Pandora lost about $1.8 million on revenues of $138 million last year. Pandora is expecting operating losses throughout the fiscal year of 2012. Pandora allows users to create custom music stations by indicating what their favorite songs are and who their favorite artists are.

Pandora makes most of their revenues from advertising on their website. They also generate revenue by offering premium accounts for a cost. The subscription revenues are less than 10% of sales. Pandora offer 9% of their shares outstanding to the public. This is a relatively small amount.

[Wired]

Pandora Now Valued At $1.9 Billion After Pricing IPO $10-$12 Per Share

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 05:36:33 +0000

Pandora is a music streaming service that has filed a new version of an S-1 with the SEC. The price range is now placed at $10 to $12 per share. Pandora now has a valuation of $1.9 billion. Pandora was originally priced at $7 to $9 per share. Pandora plans on being traded on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “P.”

Pandora is expected to raise close to $202.6 million from the offering. Pandora will be offering 6,000,682 shares of common stock to stockholders. The current stockholders will be selling 8.6 million shares of common stock in the IPO.

Pandora currently has about 94 million registered users. Pandora is adding a new registered user every second. Pandora has streamed about 3.8 billion hours of the radio for the fiscal year that ended January 31, 2011.

[TechCrunch]

Pandora Reports Q1 In SEC Filing, Revenue and Users Up

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:29:29 +0000

Pandora has reported their Q1 results in an SEC filing. Pandora has reported an increase in revenues, users, and usage. However their losses are up too. Below are some of the details in an SEC filing for Q1:

- Revenue is up 131% to $51 million from 21.6 million
- Losses are up to $6.8 million, which is up 126% from $3 million
- Registered users are up to 94 million from 53 million
- Active users are up to 34 million from 18 million
- Listener hours are up to 1.6 billion from 0.7 billion

Pandora Hits 10 Billion Thumbs

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:21:38 +0000

Music streaming service Pandora has collected 10 billion thumbs. Pandora users in indicate which songs they like by either hitting thumbs up or thumbs down. Pandora uses this information to control what songs to play for their users. By hitting thumbs up, Pandora will play similar songs for you. And by hitting thumbs down, Pandora will play less of that kind of music for you. This is a huge milestone for the music company.

“Of the many milestones we’ve hit over the past 6 years, this is perhaps the one that makes us most proud. We created Pandora to bring personalization to radio, to allow each individual to determine the sound of their stations, and to make it as simple and intuitive as possible. There is no greater evidence for us of meeting that objective than the ongoing engagement you have all shown in your use of the thumbs,” stated Pandora founder Tim Westergren.

[TechCrunch]

Report: Pandora Mobile App Sends Out Birth Date, Location, and Gender To Ad Companies

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:44:34 +0000

Veracode is an independent security firm that has determined that that the Android application of Pandora appears to be sending out the birth date, location, Android ID, GPS location and gender of its users to ad companies. A Federal Grand Jury is also involved in the investigation of apps that send out personal information to ad companies including Pandora. [Veracode via Engadget]

Pandora Filing To Go Public After Hitting 80 Million Users

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:55:18 +0000

Music streaming service Pandora.com has hit 80 million users and has filed to go public. Through the IPO, Pandora could raise as much as $100 million. Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan are co-managing the deal.

According to an SEC filing, Pandora lost $328,000 on $90 million revenues in the first nine months of 2010. Pandora’s fiscal year ends on January 31st and for the year ending 2010, Pandora lost $16.7 million on revenues of $55 million. That means Pandora’s profits substantially increased in the past year, but they have not yet broke-even.

Around 86% of Pandora’s revenues come from advertising and the rest is from premium subscriptions. Pandora has 80 million registered users, 800,000 songs, and 80,000 artists on their network. The number of registered users was 46 million a year ago and 22 million in 2009.

[TechCrunch]

Toyota Entune Intotainment System Apps Include Pandora, Bing, OpenTable

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:58:19 +0000

Japanese car company Toyota has announced a new entertainment system called Entune. Entune will be implemented in certain car models. Entune will have applications, Bluetooth, and text messaging replay and read-back. Apps on Entune include Bing, Pandora, iheartradio, OpenTable, Pandora, and MovieTickets.com. Entune will also have fuel price alerts, stock alerts, weather reports, sports scores, etc. Below is the full press release:

Toyota Announces Entune™ Multimedia System at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show

• Toyota Offers the Largest Number of Mobile Apps with Bing, iheartradio, MovieTickets.com, OpenTable.com, and Pandora
• Entune Boasts Industry-Leading Advanced Conversational Voice Recognition
• Toyota Entune Is Compatible with Most Smartphones and Feature Phones

LAS VEGAS, January 4, 2011 – Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) U.S.A., Inc. today unveiled the Toyota Entune™ multimedia system at the Consumer Electronics Show. Toyota Entune leverages the customer’s mobile phone to create a rich in-vehicle experience that offers fully integrated and upgradeable entertainment, navigation, and information services. By utilizing conversational voice recognition and in-vehicle controls, the driver doesn’t have to touch their mobile phone, allowing for safer connectivity. Toyota Entune simplifies the interaction for customers and will be available in select vehicles this year.

“Consumers have grown accustomed to having the world at their fingertips through their mobile phones,” said Jon Bucci, vice president of the Advanced Technology Department at Toyota. “And unlike other industry solutions, Entune allows the driver to interact with informative and entertaining mobile content without fumbling with their phone. We offer features that our customers demand and integrate them seamlessly in the vehicle.”

After downloading the Toyota Entune mobile application and pairing a Bluetooth capable phone with their Toyota vehicle, customers can begin accessing a wide variety of personalized content and services. Toyota Entune is wirelessly upgradeable, so in-vehicle applications are never obsolete. Ensuring that nearly all customers can take advantage of this new technology, Toyota Entune is compatible with a wide variety of mobile phones with a data plan.

Toyota Entune key features include:
• Mobile Apps – Toyota Entune debuts Bing, keeping navigation continuously up to date with more than 16 million points of interest; OpenTable, make a reservation at one of 15,000 restaurants; and MovieTickets.com, buy movie tickets and read reviews. All destinations can be seamlessly sent to the navigation system. Making drivers’ lives even easier, Toyota Entune delivers customizable real time traffic, fuel prices, weather, stocks and sports.

• Music – Toyota Entune brings you more music in more ways with iheartradio’s 750+ hometown stations; personalized stations with Pandora; XM satellite radio 170+ channels with coast-to-coast coverage; and introducing HD Radio, digital broadcasts of your favorite terrestrial music. Toyota Entune also offers USB connectivity for portable media players and traditional terrestrial radio.
• Voice Recognition – Featuring a best-in-class, advanced conversational voice recognition system, Toyota Entune eliminates the need to memorize thousands of voice commands. The intuitive interface allows the driver to focus more on the road ahead.

“Toyota has always been a leader in the automotive industry, so it makes sense it would bring the latest in mobile technology to the car,” said Chris Daniels, general manager of Bing for Mobile, Microsoft Corp. “By bringing Bing Maps and Bing for Mobile technology to the car, we are helping Toyota enhance the overall in-vehicle experience to be as rich and robust as possible, which means personalizing the information to each driver’s needs.”

Safety Connect
Toyota Entune continues to build on the excellent foundation laid by Safety Connect, bringing peace of mind to drivers with an added layer of more personalized and convenience-oriented features. Safety Connect is the cornerstone of Toyota’s telematics systems providing Automatic Collision notification, Stolen Vehicle Location Assistance, Emergency Assistance, and Roadside Assistance on select Toyota models. Safety Connect combined with Toyota Entune offers comprehensive safety services and mobile applications not found in any other vehicle make.

Product Availability
Toyota Entune will be available as an option on select models this year. The featured apps of Toyota Entune include: Bing, iheartradio, MovieTickets.com, OpenTable.com, and Pandora, as well as location-based services, such as personalized traffic, fuel prices, stocks, weather, and sports. Toyota Entune also includes support for read-back and replay capabilities for text messages. These are combined with a fully featured entertainment and communication system, which includes XM radio, HD Radio, CD player, USB connectivity, Bluetooth streaming and phonebook. A high quality JBL sound system is available as an option as well.

About Toyota
Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc. is the marketing, sales, distribution and customer service arm of Toyota, Lexus and Scion. Established in 1957, TMS markets products and services through a network of nearly 1,500 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealers which sold more than 1.77 million vehicles in 2009. Toyota directly employs nearly 30,000 people in the U.S. and its investment here is currently valued at more than $18 billion.

[Engadget]