Kurt Hanson: Report from Tokyo Part 2
by Kurt Hanson
RAIN founding editor Kurt Hanson just returned from a trip to Tokyo, where he surveyed the tech, culture, and audio landscapes. This is his second illustrated report. Continue Reading
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Kurt Hanson: Report from Tokyo
by Kurt Hanson
Over the past 14 years, RAIN has reported to you from around the world — including publishing a week’s worth of early RAIN issues from an Internet-enabled café in Copenhagen, reporting on a popular new trend among young people in Prague called “texting” (way back in 2002), and producing an early cellphone-only version of RAIN in Tokyo, and more.
Now, founding editor Kurt Hanson sends a bulletin and photos from Tokyo, where he is observing the tech and online music scenes. Continue Reading
Register now for RAIN Summit Europe 2014!
In Association With... For sponsorship info, contact Brianna Pulliam Brianna@rainnews.com Join us for our third annual European conference! Tuesday November 4th, London, England RAIN Summit Europe is the largest meetup of Internet radio and online audio professionals! Hosted by RAIN… Continue Reading
When Hertz asked, “How hard can it be?”
by Kurt Hanson
One of the hottest trends in the transportation field nowadays is that of “car sharing,” a/k/a short-term, neighborhood-distributed car rentals, a la Zipcar. In this narrative, which is both hilarious and horrendous, founding editor Kurt Hanson describes the stunning failed experience of trying a newly-developed car-sharing service offered by legacy car-rental company Hertz. Spinning off a new business line separate from a firm’s core competency isn’t as easy as it might seem — and Kurt Hanson extends that point to the Internet radio industry. Continue Reading
The Songza business: Conversation with Elias Roman, CEO
Internet radio platform Songza has built its reputation on the so-called Concierge method of music curation. The Concierge service seeks to understand the user’s mood and activity, match it to time of day, local weather, and other signals, combine all that with historical music preferences, and deliver a perfect soundtrack (playlist) for the moment.
This method of playlist discovery has been imitated, most recently by “The Sentence” in Beats Music. Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, and others have also gone down this path to varying extents.
Wanting to know more about the anatomy of Songza Concierge, and also how it ties into monetization through ad sales, we spoke with Elias Roman, CEO. Continue Reading
A survey of crowdfunded podcasts
Podcasting is a surging content category in online audio, but still off the mainstream path compared with Internet radio and music-service giants and their multi-billion-dollar valuations. Aggregators and producers such as Podcast One and Midroll Media are leveraging new platforms to raise awareness, and revenue, of online-only talk programs. Out on the fringe, some podcast creators are seeking funding and visibility on crowdfunding platforms.
Knowing about The Media Podcast project inspired us to survey crowdfunders Kickstarter and Indiegogo to observe how podcast creators are using them, and to what extent they are succeeding. Continue Reading
David Oxenford: The Summer of Copyright — songwriters demand a bigger share
by David Oxenford
Broadcast law attorney David Oxenford contributes an information-packed overview of potential music copyright reform, and all its moving parts. Continue Reading
What thought leaders think of Apple/Beats
The rumor hasn’t been refuted yet, and the entire music-tech world is treating it a fact, soon to be manifested. Apple will (reportedly) acquire Beats Electronics, including Beats Music. RAIN solicited comments from thought leaders, and harvested some of the most provocative perspectives in other media outlets, to create a landscape of opinion and speculation. Continue Reading
TuneIn launches dramatic update, announces 50-million active users
In a significant redesign of its platform, audio network TuneIn today relaunched its mobile apps and browser experience, and disclosed audience and content statistics. TuneIn now has over 50-million active users. The new app experience presents a dramatic redesign and re-naming of existing functions, and some new features. Continue Reading
Analyzing the Roaring of Pandora’s Biggest Bear
In the course of Pandora’s three-year history as a public company, it has had pretty strong support from the stock analyst world. However, consistently during that period there’s been one major bear — Rich Greenfield, of the research firm BTIG. Greenfield has issued approximately 29 analyst reports on Pandora, every one of them negative. Kurt Hanson analyzes. Continue Reading
Kurt Hanson: Analyzing the Roaring of Pandora’s Biggest Bear
In the course of Pandora’s three-year history as a public company, it has had pretty strong support from the stock analyst world. However, consistently during that period there’s been one major bear — Rich Greenfield, of the research firm BTIG. Greenfield has issued approximately 29 analyst reports on Pandora, every one of them negative. Kurt Hanson analyzes. Continue Reading
Owning music: down. Acquiring music: up.
Listening to music and acquiring music are entwined. In 2014, collecting music has a new meaning, and increasingly occurs without the need of a traditional music product — physical or virtual. What collecting music means today. Continue Reading