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Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M
- omouse 11y agoWoah, I didn't realize how much $$$ Pandora had!
- kapkapkap 11y agoSeems odd that ticketmaster would not have have been willing to purchase them for more than that (unless of course ticketfly didn't want to go that route, and was leaving money on the table).
- 6stringmerc 11y agoMaybe that relationship would've been seen as anti-competitive? As in, lots of scrutiny / regulatory hoops. Just a thought.
- gwintrob 11y agoThe founders sold their previous company to Ticketmaster. From http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/19/ticketmaster-rival-ticketfly-gets-12-million-to-make-concert-ticketing-more-social/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/19/ticketmaster-rival-ticketfl...: <<Ticketfly has an interesting origin story, the company’s co-founders sold their first startup, TicketWeb to industry leader Ticketmaster for $35 million in 2000 and then left that company in 2008 to form Ticketfly.>>
- mcintyre1994 11y ago> The Pandora app is the single most-used mobile app in the world Can this possibly be true? More used than Apple/Google/Spotify music apps maybe, but Facebook? Google search seems hard to believe too? I mean 80m users, "many on their phone" when Facebook have put up 1b users in the same day and I'm pretty sure surpassed 50%+ mobile usage?
- CPLX 11y agoI read that with an implied "most used mobile [music] app" but it is a genuinely confusing sentence.
- timcameronryan 11y agoPerhaps it's usage by time? i.e. Pandora left on in the background.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoThe launcher and lock screen do come to mind...
- smackfu 11y agoThey are pretty up there, but no, not the top, which is Facebook as you would expect. http://qz.com/481245/these-are-the-25-most-popular-2015-mobile-apps-in-america/ http://qz.com/481245/these-are-the-25-most-popular-2015-mobi...
- pointytrees 11y agoThat's a list of most popular, not most used.
- tstubben 11y agoI think they mean by time spent using the app. Pandora is used a lot in the background.
- sleet 11y agoPerhaps they define usage based on time? It seems reasonable that users would spend 1b/80m = 13 times the amount of time listening to music than they do interacting with Facebook.
- acjohnson55 11y agoBetween NextBigSound and this, Pandora's making some big moves. Wasn't sure if they'd become a dinosaur, but it'll be interesting how they tie all these capabilities together.
- cmurf 11y agoIf they can destroy Ticketmaster I'll be happy. Edit: And StubHub for that matter.
- jandrese 11y agoI find it amazing that nobody can seem to outcompete Ticketmaster. It can't really take $15 per ticket to serve up 5 webpages. Are the costs of entry really that high? It doesn't seem like selling tickets should be that hard. How can a simple middleman maintain such a massive profit margin for so long?
- thenipper 11y agoExclusive contracts? Owning the venues?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- cmurf 11y agoThey are actually Live Nation which before the merger was a spin off from Clear Channel. So they have all kinds of legacy venue usage rights and exclusive contracts. It's so incredibly blatantly anti-competitive and yet the merger was allowed: Google, Microsoft, Intel, piles of companies were against the merger. So it's not amazing at all. And then it's perfect for many entertainers because they can use Ticketmaster as a scapegoat for such high ticket prices and exclusivity.
- pedalpete 11y agoTo give people what the 'exclusive venue' right look like. If a venue uses ticketmaster, and breaks the contract, they can't sign with another ticket vendor for one year. That pretty much locks everybody else out of the market. Or the venue is going to have one very quiet year.
- acgourley 11y ago
- bmm6o 11y agoArs coverage of the story: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/pandora-makes-450m-acquisition-so-it-can-sell-you-live-music-tickets/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/pandor...
- silveira 11y agoThe photo they are using to illustrate this story, without any credit, is from the upcoming Guitar Hero Live (FreeStyleGames/Activision). No relationship with Pandora or TicketFly as far as I know. The photo: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Guitar-Hero-Live-Behind-the-Scenes-1-640x427.jpg http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Guitar...
- majani 11y agoCould anyone explain to me why they would do this instead of advertising/affiliate arrangements with all the ticket vendors out there?
- g10r 11y agoOne idea might be they were looking for complete ownership of the transactional data sets especially when paired with listening insights from that same consumer.
- xeromal 11y agoPandora was founded in 2000. Amazing how long they have survived!
- samstave 11y agoIf anyone from Pandora is reading this: * Form a partnership with Uber -- allow me to see venues with events happening on my uber map and allow me to click one button to buy a ride to the venue and a ticket at the same time! * For the love of god -- please update the Pandora Home Screen on the website app when listening to music so that the album art and the artist title are BIG and viewable from across the room! Look at how lame this layout is: http://i.imgur.com/QEciRIj.jpg http://i.imgur.com/QEciRIj.jpg Look at how small the album art/artist is and ALL that wasted screen real estate.... I mean the album art is the smallest visual element in that entire UI!!!
- anthrophuman 11y agocheck out rdio.com, they are crushing pandora in their app design imo
- thaumasiotes 11y agoMy usability gripe: If the album that Pandora has tagged a song as belonging to isn't available digitally on Amazon, but the same song is digitally available on another album, link to that. Don't imply that itunes is the only way to get it without ordering a CD.
- samstave 11y agohttp://ridetheclown.com/wp/saver2/ http://ridetheclown.com/wp/saver2/
- yaur 11y agoI use a bookmarklet to put that stuff in the title (and click the are you still listening button) you could do the same to fix the layout how you like it.
- samstave 11y agolink to said bookmarklet?
- anthrophuman 11y agohopefully now this means I won't keep hearing the same songs over and over on pandora... oh wait, already cancelled my membership edit: the truth hurts. I used and paid for pandora one for many years but the fact is they play the same songs over and over regardless of what station I'm on. switched to slacker radio, then rdio more recently and found it to be much better. best of luck to pandora though.
- chillwaves 11y agoThanks for your contribution.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoWow, so you're noticing that Pandora, an internet radio mechanism, has some similar habits to terrestrial radio. Yes, there are repeats. There are buttons for you to interact with the software that can change what you hear, but if you just RONCO set it and forget it, you're going to get the same experience as with terrestrial radio.
- codva 11y agoOne cool thing Pandora might be able to do is analyze their stream data and predict where bands will have enough fans to make money on a live show. I could imagine TicketFly offering a service that essentially tells bands where to play, and of course steer them to a Ticketfly venue whenever possible.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoThis would be especially helpful for independent and "mid-market" type bands, provided the venues available in certain cities aren't already tied into a different ticketing ecosystem via contract. Locally, I can choose from three (3) rather prominent avenues to buy from, but there's no overlap that I can tell between venues. As in, you can't get tickets to a LiveNation exclusive venue (large scale) and some smaller ones might have arrangements with other entities. I guess what I'm saying is I think you're right, but there are probably minefields of contracts in place.
- g10r 11y agoTotally agree. Tremendous value.
- paulsutter 11y agoEven better they can tell me when a band is playing locally. I listen to so many bands on Pandora, and I always seem to find out about smaller shows after they happen. Pandora can significantly increase the attendance at these shows. That's much more important economically to most bands than the tiny royalty checks. It can be a real benefit to the music business.
- justizin 11y agoGreat as long as the algorithm isn't hiding a bunch. I stopped using Pandora years ago when I interviewed with them and they ranted at me about how much they hate paying customers because they make more on advertising, which is when I started paying twice as much for Spotify. Also, the people I know that use Pandora, and my experience of using Pandora literally since they were announced on Slashdot and were one of the first Flash apps, is that they do better 'radio' than other folks, but if you stick with a channel, it don't change much over years.