10 ms·

SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

191 points by bithavoc 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chollida1 8y ago
Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. Saddly this is almost all self inflicted. While Spotify, Apple music and Google music really worked hard to get people to actually pay for the service Pandora continued to act like it was a VC backed company in hyper growth mode long after that was the case. They fought with the record labels longer than most of their competitors did to their own determent and they didn't end up getting any concessions for their extra effort. And when everyone else was letting you select any music you wanted in playlist, they insisted on staying radio style only.
- treis 8y ago
  >Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. They also got 3.5 billion for a company that hasn't made any money in its 18 year existence so it's hard to feel too bad.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - rubicon33 8y ago
    Being a business noob, I've got to ask - How exactly does a company that makes nothing in 18 years, get acquired for 3.5 billion?
    - roymurdock 8y ago
      users, and their generated data along with the potential to monetize whatever service they are consuming, is the new "revenue" they can also integrate the tech to be more competitive, or they can shut the service (currently a competitor) down and hope to pick up a portion of those listeners
      - EpicEng 8y ago
        Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017. Actual revenue is also revenue.
    - seabrookmx 8y ago
      I'm a bit of a noob here as well, but my stab at it would be: 1) They have lots of customers. I work in the music industry and have insight into how much money Pandora brings in. They might not be _profitable_ but there's definitely a lot of cash flowing there, meaning profitability isn't out of the question. 2) Technology and fit with existing business - SiriusXM has lots of curated and exclusive content. With a Spotify-like platform in Pandora, they can get some of that content infront of more streamers and diversify Pandora. The only streaming service with Howard Stern, and the only one that you can stream directly to your car over Sattelite without using data? That's compelling for a lot of people.
    - cirnine 8y ago
      Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and will have even more revenue in 2018. Of course, licensing rates means that the company only gets to see a few hundred million of that, and a significant portion of that needs to go to advertising sales personnel -- audio advertising is incredibly hands-on compared to other forms of internet advertising. As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins.
      - traek 8y ago
        > As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins. Yup, revenue doesn’t really mean anything; Walmart’s market cap is less than their 2017 revenue.
- iammiles 8y ago
  > And when everyone else was letting you select any music you wanted in playlist, they insisted on staying radio style only. This is really the nail in the coffin. After a couple days on a Spotify trial, I converted to a paid Spotify account. The only reason I logged onto Pandora after converting was to get the list of my favorited songs to add to my playlist on Spotify.
  - MrEfficiency 8y ago
    Radio was cool but they repeated songs too much. The thumbs up and down would ruin the radio algorithm. I would thumbs down live versions or comedy skits, then it would skew the entire system. This was years ago.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      Yeah last time I used Pandora, every station would inevitably turn into "freehunter's favorite songs". Rap station? Well Run-DMC did a cover of Walk This Way, and Linkin Park is kind of rap and Beastie Boys did a lot of rock songs, and now suddenly I'm getting a lot of rock in my rap list, and rock melds into pop pretty easy, and now suddenly my rap playlist has Katy Perry and Kesha. And thumbs down is always way too harsh in any algorithm you'll find, because there's no way of telling the algorithm why you didn't like it. If I thumbs down Thunder by Imagine Dragons, how does it know I really do like Imagine Dragons and that album was good and the genre was good, I just don't like that one song? And if I thumbs down Good Riddance by Green Day how does the algorithm know I love Green Day and I like that style of music, but I just have a really negative emotional attachment to that song and I don't want to cry right now? Context is super hard but super important. I listen to a lot of ambient music at work and now my Apple Music and Spotify suggestions are all ambient music, even though I don't listen to that genre for pleasure.
      - stubish 8y ago
        While I haven't used Pandora (it isn't available here), you seem to be describing my experience with Spotify's various playlists. With no personal context or ranking, the algorithms have nothing to go on except how many other people liked or repeated a song. Other people have awful taste, and seem to love to put songs on high rotation that I find mediocre. And without decent playlists and music discovery, why would you pay a monthly subscription instead of once-off fees for music you like?
- bpick 8y ago
  Pandora spent much more effort attempting to get me to sign-up (and re-sign-up) than they ever did trying to retain me. The customer service experience was harrowing, featured slow response times, an indifferent attitude to my issues and a wholly inadequate resolution leading me to quit the service. Every so often I would see news coverage about them struggling and all I could think was, "guess things on the customer service side haven't changed."
  - thehashrocket 8y ago
    I feel this way about Sirius/XM. It was such a hassle to deal with them every 6 months or a year to get a better rate when it came up for renewal. It just didn't feel like it was worth it anymore. And once I finally left they would snail mail me offers to come back constantly. I couldn't help but think that all that money spent mailing me to come back could have been spent just providing a more affordable service in the first place.
    - chrisbro 8y ago
      I was about to say, if naggy and poor customer service is a hallmark of Pandora, then becoming a part of SiriusXM will be a match made in heaven (hell?). When I finally decided to drop SiriusXM and called in to cancel my account, it took me something like 20 minutes worth of begging the phone rep to just never let me have to pay their company money ever again. They spent the entire time questioning how I used the service and trying to forcibly get me to sign up for some lowered rate for x months. I will never purchase something from them again.
      - CamperBob2 8y ago
        Just tell them you've been sentenced to prison, or are dying, or something like that.
relaunched 8y ago
This makes me side. I am a long-time, paid subscriber. We'll see what happens next, fingers crossed. I'm not sure if this was a win for the team or a mercy killing. But, if someone can explain what's in this for customers, that would be very helpful.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving. So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll pivot pandora to be more self-serve and they'll merge the good things people liked about sirius (comedy, shock jocks) with the good things people liked about pandora (choice, freemium)
  - ejo4041 8y ago
    I only know a few people that are SiriusXM subscribers still. One of them only subscribes to listen to Howard Stern. He will also only rent a car that has SiriusXM. He is a bit of an outlier though. I'm not sure of other motivations beside those two (Him and rental company).
  - heavymark 8y ago
    In regards to, "Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone?" you don't if you only listen to music or content accessibly on your preferred streaming service. Their strength is in their specific content, most notably Howard Stern to note one. If and when Apple Music/Spotify gets and/or can take away that big talent then yes Sirius will eventually be dead in the water. I use Sirius for things like CNN. I tried using CarPlay app for that and didn't work reliably enough compared to the simplicity of just knowing Sirius in car is always there and always work even if ones phone dies or any other random situations. Sirius has horrible customer support and they deserve what is coming to them, but still think they have a lot of gas left in in them as long as they continue to retain their headliners and come preloaded in new cars with free trials.
neuigkeiten 8y ago
I used Pandora in the distant past. These days I mainly use http://www.gnoosic.com http://www.gnoosic.com for recommendations and then look for the artists on the web, Youtube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc. Not sure if that makes me one of a kind? This approach gives me more of a "discoverer" feeling then using one monolithic service that spoon feeds me my musical life.
- vagab0nd 8y ago
  Most of the music recommendation services I know of are based on meta data of the songs (artist, genre, etc.). Is there anyone out there working on recommendation systems purely based on the music itself, now that we have deep learning? I'd kill for that.
wil421 8y ago
Cancelling Sirus is always interesteing. I always say I don’t want to pay the $90 or however much for 6 months of access. No $50 is also too high. How about $30? Ok sure I’ll pay. I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It’s like $20 a month and I’ve forgot to do it my self for a couple months. Pandora always had the best selections on their radio channels. Spotify is not as good for random radio selections. I would never pay for Pandora after having so much music available on Spotify or Apple Music.
- latortuga 8y ago
  My experience is that Spotify's Daily Mix playlists are actually remarkably good "radio stations"! I get up to 6 different "stations", they keep generating random new tracks the longer you listen, and they do a reasonably good job of segmenting the different styles of music I enjoy. The naming is wonky but I think the Daily Mixes are a much better "radio" than the actually-named-radio feature in Spotify. And they automatically rotate and update based on your listening!
  - TylerE 8y ago
    Yeah, they're great, but I wish they had some knobs to twiddle - like how often to play new stuff vs stuff I've played. It's a bit too easy to create feedback loops. Like say I'm trying to learn a song on guitar and play a song say 5 or 6 times. Now in my Daily Mix stations that'll be the ONLY song by that artist that they play.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  After buying an XM enabled car from a dealership, I was extremely disappointed when I started receiving weekly mailings and phone calls from them as my "trial" was expiring. I am still pissed off about the lengths I had to go to in order to stop receiving communications from them. They refused to remove my contact information from their system and could not promise I wouldn't be contacted again in the future. I had to ultimately change all of my contact information to false information, fortunately the guy I was talking to was sympathetic to my plight and had no objections testing out the system to see what BS info it would take. The whole escapade landed them on my short list of companies I will never do business with ever again.
bentona 8y ago
Other sources [1] mention a "go-shop" provision, which allows pandora to shop the deal around. I'm wondering if this is likely to result in any alternative deals? [1] http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-releases/press-release-details/2018/SiriusXM-to-Acquire-Pandora-Creating-Worlds-Largest-Audio-Entertainment-Company/default.aspx http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-release...
josefresco 8y ago
I have used Pandora (happily) for years. Just downgraded my subscription to the "free" level as I have too many streaming music providers and needed to reduce cost. SiriusXM (paid), YouTube Music (paid, new), and Pandora (free) are my streaming services. Trying to build up my YT library now, as Pandora has over a decade of my "likes".
chrisweekly 8y ago
Spotify Premium for family at $15/mo is still gonna be pretty hard to beat. But. IMHO SXM has been doing a great job with exclusive content like recent live recordings (eg phish and other jambands), which is immune to the "shazam->spotify" escape hatch I'd otherwise use. They are desperate to get onto people's devices, and as the early leader in the space Pandora's still got "eyeballs" (eardrums?) galore in terms of installed user base. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out....
unsignedint 8y ago
Recently, I got Pandora Plus through T-mobile promotion. I was enjoying it until one day, while driving, I got "Can't skip due to licensing restriction" which reminded me of the scene in Fifteen Million Merits from Black Mirror... What worse was it was bit off from type of song I asked for, and particularly I couldn't stand to listen to. I switched back to Google Play Music, which has a mix of my own uploads and (smaller for things in my taste, but doesn't complain I can't skip) music from the service.
clay_the_ripper 8y ago
I think this is really exciting actually. I LOVE SiriusXM because their radio is curated by an actual DJ. You get to hear so many tracks that algorithmic services like Spotify never would surface. I use both Spotify and SiriusXM as for me they fulfill very different use cases. Spotify is for playing what I want to hear and Sirius is for when I want a human with deep expertise in a genre to play things for me. For me, an algorithmic feed of music just isn’t interesting. Music is art, and art is for humans, not computers.
- gizmo385 8y ago
  Honestly, I discover far more music through services like Spotify and Pandora than I ever have through the SiriusXM stations that I listen to.
- loso 8y ago
  I totally agree with this. Algorithms still have a ways to go to keep up with a human DJ. As far a human DJ who has the ability to pick the songs he wants and not just a formulated top 40 playlist chosen for him.
temuze 8y ago
Not a bad exit for a company that raised a Series... H?
conception 8y ago
Whenever there is an exit like this I like to remember that for just 4B, Sirius could have had a Star Wars franchise instead. These valuations are nutty.
landa 8y ago
It's such a shame that Pandora didn't do anything with rdio.com. Rdio was the best music service I've ever used. Not only was the music high quality, but the UI was very intuitive on all devices, and it also had cool features like if you're playing Rdio on your laptop, you could use your phone as a remote control.
honkycat 8y ago
I never liked algorithmic DJs. They don't really expand my horizons and play the same crap over and over. My favorite is chirpradio dot org. Real DJs who are real music buffs.
- adrianmonk 8y ago
  Thank you. I thought I was the only one who got tired of algorithms noticing I'm listing to some classic rock and deciding a great move would be to introduce me to this band I may have never heard of called The Eagles. I've noticed that YouTube (just plain YouTube, not the new YouTube Music) is actually decent at recommending music though. I played some songs by The Meters and Herbie Hancock, and through its recommendations I learned about the existence of Lafayette Afro Rock Band and learned that Prince made a funk/fusion album in 1977 before his pop stuff. I wonder if it's just using its regular video recommendation algorithm and not anything music specific, which might be a different approach than the music services. EDIT: And by really strange coincidence, I just checked out Chirp, and the last song they played was by The Meters, and before that they played another band (Cymande) that YouTube recommended in the same session.

191 points by bithavoc 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. Saddly this is almost all self inflicted. While Spotify, Apple music and Google music really worked hard to get people to actually pay for the service Pandora continued to act like it was a VC backed company in hyper growth mode long after that was the case. They fought with the record labels longer than most of their competitors did to their own determent and they didn't end up getting any concessions for their extra effort. And when everyone else was letting you select any music you wanted in playlist, they insisted on staying radio style only.

treis 8y ago
>Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. They also got 3.5 billion for a company that hasn't made any money in its 18 year existence so it's hard to feel too bad.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- rubicon33 8y ago
  Being a business noob, I've got to ask - How exactly does a company that makes nothing in 18 years, get acquired for 3.5 billion?
  - roymurdock 8y ago
    users, and their generated data along with the potential to monetize whatever service they are consuming, is the new "revenue" they can also integrate the tech to be more competitive, or they can shut the service (currently a competitor) down and hope to pick up a portion of those listeners
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017. Actual revenue is also revenue.
  - seabrookmx 8y ago
    I'm a bit of a noob here as well, but my stab at it would be: 1) They have lots of customers. I work in the music industry and have insight into how much money Pandora brings in. They might not be _profitable_ but there's definitely a lot of cash flowing there, meaning profitability isn't out of the question. 2) Technology and fit with existing business - SiriusXM has lots of curated and exclusive content. With a Spotify-like platform in Pandora, they can get some of that content infront of more streamers and diversify Pandora. The only streaming service with Howard Stern, and the only one that you can stream directly to your car over Sattelite without using data? That's compelling for a lot of people.
  - cirnine 8y ago
    Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and will have even more revenue in 2018. Of course, licensing rates means that the company only gets to see a few hundred million of that, and a significant portion of that needs to go to advertising sales personnel -- audio advertising is incredibly hands-on compared to other forms of internet advertising. As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins.
    - traek 8y ago
      > As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins. Yup, revenue doesn’t really mean anything; Walmart’s market cap is less than their 2017 revenue.
iammiles 8y ago
> And when everyone else was letting you select any music you wanted in playlist, they insisted on staying radio style only. This is really the nail in the coffin. After a couple days on a Spotify trial, I converted to a paid Spotify account. The only reason I logged onto Pandora after converting was to get the list of my favorited songs to add to my playlist on Spotify.
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  Radio was cool but they repeated songs too much. The thumbs up and down would ruin the radio algorithm. I would thumbs down live versions or comedy skits, then it would skew the entire system. This was years ago.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Yeah last time I used Pandora, every station would inevitably turn into "freehunter's favorite songs". Rap station? Well Run-DMC did a cover of Walk This Way, and Linkin Park is kind of rap and Beastie Boys did a lot of rock songs, and now suddenly I'm getting a lot of rock in my rap list, and rock melds into pop pretty easy, and now suddenly my rap playlist has Katy Perry and Kesha. And thumbs down is always way too harsh in any algorithm you'll find, because there's no way of telling the algorithm why you didn't like it. If I thumbs down Thunder by Imagine Dragons, how does it know I really do like Imagine Dragons and that album was good and the genre was good, I just don't like that one song? And if I thumbs down Good Riddance by Green Day how does the algorithm know I love Green Day and I like that style of music, but I just have a really negative emotional attachment to that song and I don't want to cry right now? Context is super hard but super important. I listen to a lot of ambient music at work and now my Apple Music and Spotify suggestions are all ambient music, even though I don't listen to that genre for pleasure.
    - stubish 8y ago
      While I haven't used Pandora (it isn't available here), you seem to be describing my experience with Spotify's various playlists. With no personal context or ranking, the algorithms have nothing to go on except how many other people liked or repeated a song. Other people have awful taste, and seem to love to put songs on high rotation that I find mediocre. And without decent playlists and music discovery, why would you pay a monthly subscription instead of once-off fees for music you like?
bpick 8y ago
Pandora spent much more effort attempting to get me to sign-up (and re-sign-up) than they ever did trying to retain me. The customer service experience was harrowing, featured slow response times, an indifferent attitude to my issues and a wholly inadequate resolution leading me to quit the service. Every so often I would see news coverage about them struggling and all I could think was, "guess things on the customer service side haven't changed."
- thehashrocket 8y ago
  I feel this way about Sirius/XM. It was such a hassle to deal with them every 6 months or a year to get a better rate when it came up for renewal. It just didn't feel like it was worth it anymore. And once I finally left they would snail mail me offers to come back constantly. I couldn't help but think that all that money spent mailing me to come back could have been spent just providing a more affordable service in the first place.
  - chrisbro 8y ago
    I was about to say, if naggy and poor customer service is a hallmark of Pandora, then becoming a part of SiriusXM will be a match made in heaven (hell?). When I finally decided to drop SiriusXM and called in to cancel my account, it took me something like 20 minutes worth of begging the phone rep to just never let me have to pay their company money ever again. They spent the entire time questioning how I used the service and trying to forcibly get me to sign up for some lowered rate for x months. I will never purchase something from them again.
    - CamperBob2 8y ago
      Just tell them you've been sentenced to prison, or are dying, or something like that.

relaunched 8y ago

This makes me side. I am a long-time, paid subscriber. We'll see what happens next, fingers crossed. I'm not sure if this was a win for the team or a mercy killing. But, if someone can explain what's in this for customers, that would be very helpful.

jbob2000 8y ago
SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving. So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll pivot pandora to be more self-serve and they'll merge the good things people liked about sirius (comedy, shock jocks) with the good things people liked about pandora (choice, freemium)
- ejo4041 8y ago
  I only know a few people that are SiriusXM subscribers still. One of them only subscribes to listen to Howard Stern. He will also only rent a car that has SiriusXM. He is a bit of an outlier though. I'm not sure of other motivations beside those two (Him and rental company).
- heavymark 8y ago
  In regards to, "Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone?" you don't if you only listen to music or content accessibly on your preferred streaming service. Their strength is in their specific content, most notably Howard Stern to note one. If and when Apple Music/Spotify gets and/or can take away that big talent then yes Sirius will eventually be dead in the water. I use Sirius for things like CNN. I tried using CarPlay app for that and didn't work reliably enough compared to the simplicity of just knowing Sirius in car is always there and always work even if ones phone dies or any other random situations. Sirius has horrible customer support and they deserve what is coming to them, but still think they have a lot of gas left in in them as long as they continue to retain their headliners and come preloaded in new cars with free trials.

neuigkeiten 8y ago

I used Pandora in the distant past. These days I mainly use http://www.gnoosic.com http://www.gnoosic.com for recommendations and then look for the artists on the web, Youtube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc. Not sure if that makes me one of a kind? This approach gives me more of a "discoverer" feeling then using one monolithic service that spoon feeds me my musical life.

vagab0nd 8y ago
Most of the music recommendation services I know of are based on meta data of the songs (artist, genre, etc.). Is there anyone out there working on recommendation systems purely based on the music itself, now that we have deep learning? I'd kill for that.

wil421 8y ago

Cancelling Sirus is always interesteing. I always say I don’t want to pay the $90 or however much for 6 months of access. No $50 is also too high. How about $30? Ok sure I’ll pay. I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It’s like $20 a month and I’ve forgot to do it my self for a couple months. Pandora always had the best selections on their radio channels. Spotify is not as good for random radio selections. I would never pay for Pandora after having so much music available on Spotify or Apple Music.

latortuga 8y ago
My experience is that Spotify's Daily Mix playlists are actually remarkably good "radio stations"! I get up to 6 different "stations", they keep generating random new tracks the longer you listen, and they do a reasonably good job of segmenting the different styles of music I enjoy. The naming is wonky but I think the Daily Mixes are a much better "radio" than the actually-named-radio feature in Spotify. And they automatically rotate and update based on your listening!
- TylerE 8y ago
  Yeah, they're great, but I wish they had some knobs to twiddle - like how often to play new stuff vs stuff I've played. It's a bit too easy to create feedback loops. Like say I'm trying to learn a song on guitar and play a song say 5 or 6 times. Now in my Daily Mix stations that'll be the ONLY song by that artist that they play.
cptskippy 8y ago
After buying an XM enabled car from a dealership, I was extremely disappointed when I started receiving weekly mailings and phone calls from them as my "trial" was expiring. I am still pissed off about the lengths I had to go to in order to stop receiving communications from them. They refused to remove my contact information from their system and could not promise I wouldn't be contacted again in the future. I had to ultimately change all of my contact information to false information, fortunately the guy I was talking to was sympathetic to my plight and had no objections testing out the system to see what BS info it would take. The whole escapade landed them on my short list of companies I will never do business with ever again.

bentona 8y ago

Other sources [1] mention a "go-shop" provision, which allows pandora to shop the deal around. I'm wondering if this is likely to result in any alternative deals? [1] http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-releases/press-release-details/2018/SiriusXM-to-Acquire-Pandora-Creating-Worlds-Largest-Audio-Entertainment-Company/default.aspx http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-release...

josefresco 8y ago

I have used Pandora (happily) for years. Just downgraded my subscription to the "free" level as I have too many streaming music providers and needed to reduce cost. SiriusXM (paid), YouTube Music (paid, new), and Pandora (free) are my streaming services. Trying to build up my YT library now, as Pandora has over a decade of my "likes".

chrisweekly 8y ago

Spotify Premium for family at $15/mo is still gonna be pretty hard to beat. But. IMHO SXM has been doing a great job with exclusive content like recent live recordings (eg phish and other jambands), which is immune to the "shazam->spotify" escape hatch I'd otherwise use. They are desperate to get onto people's devices, and as the early leader in the space Pandora's still got "eyeballs" (eardrums?) galore in terms of installed user base. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out....

unsignedint 8y ago

Recently, I got Pandora Plus through T-mobile promotion. I was enjoying it until one day, while driving, I got "Can't skip due to licensing restriction" which reminded me of the scene in Fifteen Million Merits from Black Mirror... What worse was it was bit off from type of song I asked for, and particularly I couldn't stand to listen to. I switched back to Google Play Music, which has a mix of my own uploads and (smaller for things in my taste, but doesn't complain I can't skip) music from the service.

clay_the_ripper 8y ago

I think this is really exciting actually. I LOVE SiriusXM because their radio is curated by an actual DJ. You get to hear so many tracks that algorithmic services like Spotify never would surface. I use both Spotify and SiriusXM as for me they fulfill very different use cases. Spotify is for playing what I want to hear and Sirius is for when I want a human with deep expertise in a genre to play things for me. For me, an algorithmic feed of music just isn’t interesting. Music is art, and art is for humans, not computers.

gizmo385 8y ago
Honestly, I discover far more music through services like Spotify and Pandora than I ever have through the SiriusXM stations that I listen to.
loso 8y ago
I totally agree with this. Algorithms still have a ways to go to keep up with a human DJ. As far a human DJ who has the ability to pick the songs he wants and not just a formulated top 40 playlist chosen for him.

temuze 8y ago

Not a bad exit for a company that raised a Series... H?

conception 8y ago

Whenever there is an exit like this I like to remember that for just 4B, Sirius could have had a Star Wars franchise instead. These valuations are nutty.

landa 8y ago

It's such a shame that Pandora didn't do anything with rdio.com. Rdio was the best music service I've ever used. Not only was the music high quality, but the UI was very intuitive on all devices, and it also had cool features like if you're playing Rdio on your laptop, you could use your phone as a remote control.

honkycat 8y ago

I never liked algorithmic DJs. They don't really expand my horizons and play the same crap over and over. My favorite is chirpradio dot org. Real DJs who are real music buffs.

adrianmonk 8y ago
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who got tired of algorithms noticing I'm listing to some classic rock and deciding a great move would be to introduce me to this band I may have never heard of called The Eagles. I've noticed that YouTube (just plain YouTube, not the new YouTube Music) is actually decent at recommending music though. I played some songs by The Meters and Herbie Hancock, and through its recommendations I learned about the existence of Lafayette Afro Rock Band and learned that Prince made a funk/fusion album in 1977 before his pop stuff. I wonder if it's just using its regular video recommendation algorithm and not anything music specific, which might be a different approach than the music services. EDIT: And by really strange coincidence, I just checked out Chirp, and the last song they played was by The Meters, and before that they played another band (Cymande) that YouTube recommended in the same session.