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Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

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71–80 of 95 posts

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#71

> 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?

This claim is really lofty. You also have to consider that Pandora has 80 MM users in a month. Facebook has 1250 MM mobile users in a month. The average Facebook user spends around 20 minutes on it a day (40 minutes for average US user).

Even Pandora's claims against Spotify seem pretty suspect. While Spotify presumably has less active users (75 MM, assuming monthly), I'd bet their users spend more time using the service (given that roughly 1/3 of Spotify's actives have subscriptions to the service).

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#72
post #11

> 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?

Perhaps 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.

If you're going to use that metric, use ~1.25 B for Facebook (monthly actives on mobile).

1.25B/80m = ~16 times. The average Facebook user in the US spends about 40 minutes on FB per day (not sure of mobile vs desktop breakdown):

16*40minutes = 10 hours per day on Pandora on average. Absolutely no way.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#73
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're serious or not. I think the connection that was being made is that, if you evaluate usage based purely on time, Pandora may have a ton of time in use. But, much (or at least some) of that time may be people who've left it to stream for hours after they've left.

I think Pandora stops if you leave the app playing for some hours without any interaction with the app. Most streaming services do that to save bandwidth.

Paid version wont do that.

This is needed for music playing in the background at restaurants for example.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#74
One 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.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#75
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Pandora stops if you leave the app playing for some hours without any interaction with the app. Most streaming services do that to save bandwidth.

Paid version wont do that. This is needed for music playing in the background at restaurants for example.

> music playing in the background at restaurants

I'm pretty sure Spotify/Pandora's terms & conditions don't allow that:

https://help.pandora.com/customer/portal/articles/215200-pla...

https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/end-user-agreement/#s8

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#76
post #13

If they can destroy Ticketmaster I'll be happy. Edit: And StubHub for that matter.

I 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?

The thing is, the venues get part of that fee. So they're not going to be interested in working with anybody who would get rid of that fee.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#77
post #13

If they can destroy Ticketmaster I'll be happy. Edit: And StubHub for that matter.

I 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?

Yes. TM has exclusives with all of the venues you've heard of, so you'll at least have to break into those negotiations, which are for contracts lasting around 5 years.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To 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.

What if you sold those venues software that let them be their own vendor?

It wouldn't be anywhere as convenient as something like the online ticket vendors.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#79
post #74

One 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.

This 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.

Re: Pandora Acquires TicketFly for $450M

#80

hopefully 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.

Wow, 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.
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