Updates over Media, Marketing en Publishing
Veteran streaming radio platform Pandora released its fourth quarter earnings today, in which it saw its fiscal 2013 revenue of $427.1 million, representing a 56 percent year-over-year increase, and fourth quarter revenue of $125.1 million, an increase of 54 percent year-over-year. In turn, mobile revenue for the fourth quarter grew 111 percent year-over-year to $80.3 million.
Over the last decade, the rise of mobile technology and the maturation of the Web as distribution and consumption channels has had a devastating effect on the music industry, among others. Yet, on the bright side, more recently these technologies have produced a litany of new ways to discover great music, empowering both fans and musicians in the process. While it seems that each day brings a new music app or product — a net positive for music fans — there’s also a lot of noise.
Senzari, the Miami-based Pandora competitor backed by $3 million in funding from 500 Startups and other angels, is making good on its recent acquisition of the Berlin-based streaming music app Wahwah.fm. The company is now spinning off its music efforts as a mobile-first streaming radio application, rebranded as just Wahwah. In the meantime, the Senzari web-based streaming service is being temporarily shut down, as the product is rebuilt.
Timbre launched last September as a bootstrapped mobile iOS app to help people discover and share live music recommendations in their vicinity. The simple-but-engaging user interface and service proved to be a hit, and within two months, with no spend on media or marketing, it saw more than 100,000 downloads. That attention then brought something else: VCs, who came knocking on Boston-based developer Intrepid’s door. Today, with $360,000 in seed funding from Fred Destin at Atlas, Boston Seed Capital’s Nicole Stata and Bantam Group’s Joe Caruso, Timbre is opening up its app to work beyond the U.S. and in 34 countries, with more features to boot.
You may not be familiar with her name, but Judy Estrin has quietly become one of Silicon Valley’s most successful serial entrepreneurs and executives. She began her career working with Vint Cerf’s research group at Stanford University — the same one that played a central role in the development of the Internet. Since the early ’80s, she has founded seven technology companies, has served as the CTO of Cisco Systems and held board positions at FedEx for 20 years, Sun Microsystems for eight years, and currently sits on the board of The Walt Disney Company (a position she’s held since 1998). Oh, and she’s also the author of “Closing the Innovation Gap” and led the team that developed one of the first local area networks.
Editor’s Note: Brenden Mulligan created Onesheet, a tool that enables musicians to create beautiful web presences in two minutes.
MySpace. Or is it Myspace. Or is it My______. Truth is, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that MySpace has made increasingly bad decisions for too many years to every hope that they’ll become relevant again. Their latest bad decision shows how detached they are.
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If you’re an independent band, or actor, or clown, or really creative of any stripe, you’re probably looking for a gig. But try as you might, finding that gig is tough. But what if there were a platform that gave creatives their very own LinkedIn or CareerBuilder? In a down economy, where millions are struggling to find regular work, any site that helps musicians connect with gigs at places like SXSW, Bonnaroo or MTV, or helps actors, dancers and performers line up spots in film, TV and beyond, is a step in the right direction.
That is the reason why, in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners, Backstage decided to shell out about $15 million to acquire the Boston-based Sonicbids. For those unfamiliar, Backstage (besides being a place that I’m not allowed) is a 50-year-old entertainment industry brand known for publishing a weekly trade rag and bimonthly industry directory/digest, among other things. Essentially, the company’s goal is to help those working in the performing arts connect with casting directors, job opportunities and career advice.
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More money for big data analytics — and a sign that, as the space matures, we will see more segmentation of what kinds of big data is getting analysed. Semetric, the UK/LA-based company behind the music data tracking service Musicmetric, has today announced £3 million ($4.7 million) in new investment, which it says that it will use to further expand its music service, as well as other big data products specifically for the entertainment industry. New investor Imperial Innovations Group and existing backer Pentech Ventures both participated. Semetric has raised $7.4 million since being founded in 2008.
With nearly three million downloads and 300,000 active users, Soundtracking lets you share what you’re listening to. But when it added a Twitter Card integration to turn tweets into musical photos, referrals went up 30%, and it knew its iOS app needed a visual refocusing. Soundtracking for iOS 3.0 ditches the text-based feed for singing photos, and adds music dedications plus a trending nearby tab
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