*By Carlo Versano*
In streaming years, online music service Pandora is ancient.
Among the first platforms to offer a "freemium" product, the company, founded in 2000, now boasts 71 million active monthly users in a hyper-crowded industry and offers three tiers of membership: $10 and $5 per month, or free.
Maybe conversely, it's that free, ad-supported tier ー which accounts for the vast majority of the platform's user base ー that has the most potential.
While at the Mobile World Live conference, Pandora CEO Roger Lynch told Cheddar that audio is one of the few areas in digital advertising that hasn't been conquered by the Google-Facebook duopoly. Pandora, which gathers data from users' listening histories to recommend new music, is particularly qualified to explore new ways to offer targeted ads of varying length. That's the "next big frontier" in audio advertising, Lynch said.
To that end, Pandora acquired the programmatic ad tech firm AdsWizz for $145 million earlier this year. For consumers, the personalized data-driven ad model that dominates text and video ads online, would mean shorter audio commercials ー think four minutes an hour on Pandora compared to 20 on terrestrial radio, Lynch said.
Pandora also teamed up with Snap to allow Snapchat users to share songs seamlessly, even if they didn't subscribe to the same music services.
"We're trying to make \[music\] a lot more social," Lynch said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-pandora-plans-to-stay-on-top-in-streaming-wars).
Before the SAG-AFTRA strike, this was the weekend “Dune: Part Two” was supposed to open. When Warner Bros. and Legendary pushed that opening back to March 2024 and no other blockbuster stepped in to take its spot.
A growing number of Californians are planting agave to be harvested forz use in spirits. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages.
Big Business This Week is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street. This week we highlight Paramount, Maersk, Starbucks, Uber, Lyft and Beyond Meat.
With Donald Trump due on the witness stand next week, testimony from his adult sons in his civil business fraud trial wrapped up Friday with Eric Trump saying he relied completely on accountants and lawyers to assure the accuracy of financial documents key to the case.
DraftKings reported better-than-expected revenue in the third quarter.
Wallet Hub released a list of the 10 states with the highest median monthly student loan payments.
Oil and gas giant BP will purchase electric vehicle chargers from Tesla for $100 million.
Reports say olive oil prices have jumped 75% since January of 2021.
The big three car companies for GM and Stellantis have agreed to pay striking workers as they spend time on the picket line, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Elon Musk is making a big prediction about artificial intelligence and the jobs market.
