Link: VentureBlog: Pandora and Persistence.
So many things to blog about. So many people to get back to. Lots of connecting to do...
I've been thinking a lot about Pandora lately. A few months ago, Toby from MusicMobs came to meet with us and we talked about whether or not people could make businesses out of recommendations when content was widely available and approaching incremental costs near zero. When you get the "music dialtone", finding new music (new to you) becomes the challenge.
Pandora was free for a while and now they're going to start charging $36 a year... so, are recommendations worth $4 a month to me. Maybe, but for how long? Admittedly, I did find some groups from my Pandora station
Rammstein Me, including Icon of Coil, which I LOVE and listened to on my bike ride into work today. (Great sound, kind of cruddly lyrics, but I'm not a big lyrics guy). But, I don't want to just listen to the stream on my computer... I want to take it around with me. That's why I have XM. I can take the console out of my stereo and plug it into my car when I get it. Mobility is worth something to me.
Plus, recommendations without a built out download service remind me a little bit of a social network for social network's sake. If Pandora would power iTunes or Rhapsody, that would be great, but to just listen... I dunno... my own streaming internet radio station really isn't worth $4 a month to me... not if you compare the value I get out of the same price for Flickr.
I'm really curious to see if they can built a sustainable service out of this. I'm really surprised they couldn't make enough from affiliate sales of the tracks or at least didn't try to.