Pandora
Google takes aim at Spotify and Pandora
May 15, 2013: 1:39 PM ETIts new music service -- Google Play Music All Access -- has features that are similar to both competitors.
By Ryan Bradley, senior editor
FORTUNE -- After months of buildup, on Wednesday Google announced a new, subscription-based streaming music service called Google Play Music All Access. The name may be clunky, but the offerings appear bountiful.
Google (GOOG) secured deals with three of the four major record labels—Universal Music, Sony, and Warner Music Group. Fortune reported in March on the Warner deal, and the plans from YouTube to launch a similar streaming service. Google Play Music All Access is, as its name suggests, built atop Google Play for Android, which previously existed as a digital locker for music. All Access merges users' current Play collections with access to millions of additional songs, for $9.99 a month.
Google is offering a 30-day free trial and, in a bid to reward early adopters, if you sign up by June 30th, after the trial ends, All Access will cost $7.99 a month.
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While Google's service seems a direct shot at other subscription-based streaming music providers, like Spotify and Rdio, it is also a direct shot at Apple (AAPL), which has long been rumored to be planning a streaming service on its iTunes store. That Google managed to ink deals with the major labels -- companies that Apple has had a long relationship with -- and launch before Apple was clearly a point of pride at the company's Mountain View headquarters, where the company announced the service at Google I/O, its developer's conference. Google called it "radio without rules" and "your personal library, blended with ours" and repeatedly touted the power of "Google powered recommendations" behind a music discovery engine.
Google Play Music All Access launches Wednesday. (You can sign up here.) What will be fascinating to watch, in the coming months, is not just how Google's competitors respond, but what YouTube offers in music. After all, YouTube is currently the biggest music site on the Internet, and it gives its content away for free. When so much music is so readily available for free, what is it that makes people willing to pay for a service such as All Access?
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The one chart that shows the dominance of the smartphone
Is Apple prepping a streaming music service? Nobody outside Cupertino knows. Here's strong evidence why it should.
FORTUNE -- There's no doubt that the smartphone kickstarted a revolution. But the extent to which this is true in music and other media isn't yet fully appreciated. Consider this: Some 20 million people paid for music subscriptions last year. And an estimated 80 million tap into "freemium" streaming services such as Pandora (P) and Slacker. A MORE
Mar 29, 2013 8:14 AM ET -
IPO: May be hazardous to CEO health
Initial public offering side effects include first-day pop followed my painful malaise. Take with caution.
By Kevin Kelleher
FORTUNE – First Groupon fired Andrew Mason. Now Pandora says Joe Kennedy is leaving Pandora. Being a CEO of a company that made a splash in the public markets with high-flying IPOs is starting to look like a job hazard.
Pandora (P) priced its shares at $16 in June 2010. On its first day of trading, MORE
Mar 8, 2013 10:02 AM ET -
YouTube to launch music streaming service, take on Spotify
Exclusive: Google is planning to roll out a music streaming service to capitalize on the power of YouTube.
By Ryan Bradley and Jessi Hempel
FORTUNE -- YouTube, the world's largest digital repository of streaming media, will launch a subscription music service later this year. The service has its own negotiating team and operating unit but will likely have some overlap with new features also rumored to be coming to Google's Android MORE
Mar 5, 2013 10:35 AM ETPosted in: Amazon MP3, Google, Google Play, iTunes, Muve Music, Pandora, Rdio, SoundCloud, Spotify, streaming music, YouTube -
The big music brain that knows what you like
You probably haven't heard of it, but Echo Nest powers products from the likes of Spotify, Vevo, and MTV.
By Rob Walker, contributor
FORTUNE -- It began with an argument. Tristan Jehan and Brian Whitman met as Ph.D. candidates at MIT's Media Lab. Both were amateur musicians passionate about the ways technology might recommend songs based on a listener's tastes. Both were convinced that "collaborative filtering," a trendy means of achieving MORE
Oct 18, 2012 5:00 AM ET -
Today in Tech: Meet Art.sy, the Pandora of art
Also: Pandora CEO argues some artists are making millions; Box hits 14 million-plus users.
Art.sy is mapping the world of art on the Web [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
For the Art Genome Project, Matthew Israel, 34, who holds a Ph.D. in art and archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, leads a team of a dozen art historians who decide what those codes are and how they should MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Oct 10, 2012 5:30 AM ETPosted in: Barack Obama, Jack Dorsey, Pandora, Pandora Media, Pandora Radio, Soundexchange, tim westergren, Twitter -
Today in Tech: How Microsoft kept PC partners in the dark
LCD TV shipments fall for the first time; Microsoft kept its Surface tablet under wraps, even from PC partners.
NPD: Global LCD TV shipments fall for first time [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
Global television shipments fell 8% in the first quarter from a year earlier, as LCD-TV volume posted its first year-over-year drop, according to research firm NPD Group. LCD TV shipments fell 3% to 43.1 million units from a year earlier and MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jun 20, 2012 12:16 PM ET -
Spotify CEO: Music access, not ownership, is the future
Daniel Ek, the CEO of the online music service Spotify, has ambitious plans for penetrating the U.S. market. Profitability, for now, isn't a concern.
FORTUNE -- One week after Spotify launched in the U.S., CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek discussed his company's rapid growth at Brainstorm Tech in Aspen, Colo.
The simple, legal "all-you-can-eat" music service has made waves in parts of Europe with a freemium model that lets users listen to MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jul 21, 2011 1:59 PM ETPosted in: Apple Inc., danielek, iTunes, Music, Pandora, Pandora Media, Rdio, Spotify, United States -
Clear Channel: What digital music disruption?
Pandora. Spotify. SoundCloud. A number of companies are challenging a space dominated by the likes of Clear Channel.
FORTUNE -- Despite services like Spotify, Pandora, and Turntable.fm, which have all received generous buzz lately for one reason or another, digital music services aren't quite as disruptive to the music industry as you might think.At least that's what Clear Channel's Bob Pittman insinuated during a discussion about online music services at Brainstorm MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jul 20, 2011 6:54 PM ET -
3 online music game-changers
These innovative services are transforming the way listeners listen to their favorite tracks and discover new ones.
This is one in a series of articles leading up to the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, which will be held from July 19-21 in Aspen, Colorado. Fortune Brainstorm Tech will round up many of the best and brightest thinkers in technology. Our coverage in this series will examine the progress of companies that presented MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jul 8, 2011 12:23 PM ETPosted in: Daniel Ek, Disc jockey, Facebook, iTunes, MediaNet, Online music store, Pandora, Seth Goldstein, Spotify, United States
