Worthy news items and interesting reads from around the web. Today:
Why is Pandora stock sliding?: Pandora stock (P) is down about 12 percent from the middle of last week, and the reason is an analyst report that focused on the company’s programmatic ad-buying platform. Michael Foster, an analyst at OTR, reported on his research with ad/agency buyers using Pandora’s programmatic ad platform. the result tanked the stock, and is being circulated as a negative report, though it contains some positive reactions about Pandora’s platform. Programmatic inventory in Pandora is limited to display ads — not audio or video. As such, it represents a small portion of the company’s overall monetization effort. Buyers who were interviewed for the analyst report made some interesting comparisons to Spotify’s ad-sales efforts.
The gorilla in the room gains weight: YouTube is bigger than ever, both in its catalog (which grows by 300 hours per minute), and its monetization. Forbes reports that YouTube is bigger than some individual cable networks, earning an estimated $4-billion in 2014. YouTube is not all music, of course, but it remains the largest music distributor in the world by far.
Inside Spotify’s new playlist: Today we reported and test-drove Spotify’s new “Discover Weekly” playlist. Wired talked to the people who created that music intelligence technology, and the company culture which is trying to create life soundtracking.