I've been told by people in the position to know that the 2010-era streaming services (Rdio, Spotify, Mog) were all effectively the same company: owned mostly by the music studios (in exchange for licenses) with a minority stake for each's particular founders/investors. As Dalton Caldwell cautioned in 2011, licensing costs make music startups are nigh impossible [1]. For people who are willing to pay for a music serv…
I really like spotify because I can use it on my phone, PS3, laptop, etc. My phone can be the remote to my sound system in another room. I also have a small data plan on my phone so I do not stream music. Spotify allows me to download their songs for playing offline. Does Google Music provide these or similar?
Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
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Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the part that intrigued me. Chapter 11 means the original investors get the short end right? why would they agree to this acquisition? or do they get money back, and tax-payers cover the losses?
Shareholders get will nothing, but debt holders will still get paid in proportion of how much they're owed.
The law varies state-by-state but the actual process is closer to the following:
(1) Company agrees to file for bankruptcy, usually because they feel it's in the owners' (shareholders) best interest to do so, in terms of recovering as much as possible from the "bad" company, vs. trying to keep the company running.
(2) Company's management comes up with a plan to distribute company's assets (cash, servers, IP, whatever) more or less "fairly" among the creditors. A big part of this is preventing management from giving a sweetheart deal on something worth a lot, to their friend/relative/whoever (e.g. selling the customer list for $1 to their friend's company), vs. making sure everyone who has a claim on said assets can get the most back as possible. A lot of arguments happen here, this is the main point of the rdio situation, whether the sale to Pandora is the best possible outcome for everyone.
(3) The company's assets get distributed as follows:
Employees -- most states give employees' unpaid wages preferential treatment in bankruptcy, under the same legal doctrine of why employees can't be held civilly liable (sued) doing something under control of their employer -- employers have a general duty to care for/protect their employees. (Note that neither the high priority bankruptcy payment, nor the liability protection, applies to contractors. Keep this in mind next time you think contractors are "overpaid" earning 2x as much as a W2, on top of the fact that they get no benefits and have to pay both sides of FICA)
Secured creditors -- any creditor whose claim is "secured" or "backed up" by some kind of asset, e.g. mortgage lenders.
Unsecured creditors -- 1099 contractors, lessors, all vendors, debenture (bond) holders, basically anyone who claims they're "owed" by the company.
And finally, lastly, equity holders (stockholders). They don't necessary have to get zero, but often do, because they're so far down the list of who gets paid (what investment bankers call "capital structure seniority" -- they're very junior).
So yes, it might be more or less ratable within each class, but there's no guarantee that "shareholders will get nothing", nor is it strictly proportional.
This is the garbage collection of capitalism and I find it fascinating.
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you about Google Music. For those lucky enough to sign up early and get the $7.99 price, it is easily the best pay for streaming service out there.
Best is subjective. Google Music is definitely a great music store. For those wanting a social music experience Spotify is the "best". For those wanting curated music and a digital radio experience Apple Music is the "best". For those wanting a hands off service Pandora is the "best".
I have used Google, Spotify, and Pandora, and in my experience, Google's hands-off auto-generated playlists are extremely high quality. They also have great radio/curated playlists via the Songza acquisition.
Spotify is a clear winner for a social experience, but I think you're really underestimating Google on the other dimensions.
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried out both a couple years ago, found them to be pretty comparable in terms of music catalog, and chose Rdio because I prefer their interface. Recently, I've been noticing that some of the "people" I follow have stopped publishing playlists to Rdio in favor of Spotify, so I've been considering the switch. But it's a shame to have to leave Rdio's great HTML5 web interface for either Spotify's native app or flash.
Spotify has a web player as well
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#95I also had this handy bookmarklet to mute most of the ads: https://gist.github.com/craigds/14db5022a00b946ee14f
I have no interest in a mobile app or downloading content. Streaming whatever I want whenever I want on my laptop is important, and having a good discovery mechanism is important too. Pandora and Spotify aren't up to scratch.
I don't think there are any decent alternatives to Rdio, though I just googled and discovered Google Play Music is now available in NZ, so maybe I'll give that a go.
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#96Pandora: Rags to riches poster child of SV: CEO cant make payroll; begs employees to stay and they do.... Pays $75,000,000 for assets of a competitor a few years later.
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#97This is a real shame. I just discovered Rdio about a month ago and it was a breath of fresh air coming from Pandora (repetitive music discovery, and you can't play a specific song/album) and Spotify (awful UI, cluttered and full of bugs, and not web based). I also had this handy bookmarklet to mute most of the ads: https://gist.github.com/craigds/14db5022a00b946ee14f I have no interest in a mobile app or downloading…
> This is a real shame.
And this
> I also had this handy bookmarklet to mute most of the ads: https://gist.github.com/craigds/14db5022a00b946ee14f
Might be related.
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#98This is a real shame. I just discovered Rdio about a month ago and it was a breath of fresh air coming from Pandora (repetitive music discovery, and you can't play a specific song/album) and Spotify (awful UI, cluttered and full of bugs, and not web based). I also had this handy bookmarklet to mute most of the ads: https://gist.github.com/craigds/14db5022a00b946ee14f I have no interest in a mobile app or downloading…
This > This is a real shame. And this > I also had this handy bookmarklet to mute most of the ads: https://gist.github.com/craigds/14db5022a00b946ee14f Might be related.
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#99that is really unfortunate, I much prefer Rdio's web interface to Spotify's and for all the years I've been a subscriber it's been rock solid, on the other hand I do think I am likely not the typical user (100% on desktop, mostly listens to full albums rather than random songs, a lot of classical music, etc.) When Rdio shuts down I am really not sure where I will be able to go for a comparable experience, Spotify for…
Rdio lets me find out about a specific musician/composer, then I get get to listen to a lot of their recorded output for free immediately, and repeat albums as much as I want.
RIP Rdio, you were awesome!
Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service
#100Every time they continuously deploy one of those "please upgrade" popups, which is nearly every day (pretty annoying BTW, can't you just upgrade silently? I've never even noticed anything change after one of these upgrades, I don't care, especially not in the exact moment when I'm about to relax and put on an album), I hope they'll have fixed this.
I really loathe how the streaming services don't allow me to customize my UX in any way. Especially when it's harder to find albums in their clients than in a shelf of CDs.
From what I can tell from random Google Music screenshots, it's also oriented around the "grid of enormous pictures" paradigm. :(