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8tracks indie music library is a hipster's dream
If your musical tastes are too obscure for Spotify and Pandora, 8tracks' got you covered. The radio-style app averages eight million active members and about 30 million hours of streaming every month. Today, the company is rolling out a library feature that allows members (or DJs) to access 6.5 million tracks from independent music storehouses like INgrooves, CD Baby, Dim Mak and more. Over the last six years since its inception, 8tracks has become a discovery tool for the indie music loving community. Two-thirds of its streams are from independent labels and musicians. With the new partnerships, it strengthens that position and continues to support artists with exposure and royalties.
Pandora will remove 40-hour mobile listening limit next month
There's nothing quite like a 180, and that's what Pandora plans to pull as next month rolls in. The outfit's 40-hour mobile listening limit, which was established back in February, will be history in September. The move was announced today by CFO Mike Herring, as he stated the following: "When we introduced the 40 hour mobile listening limit, we were confident that our scale -- over 7 percent of total radio listening and Pandora's number one ranking in most major markets -- would allow us to take this action without impacting our key monetization initiatives in driving the disruption of the radio advertising market and driving our mobile advertising leadership. As our results have shown, the continued strong growth in our advertising revenue allowed us to cover the increased royalty costs with dollars left over to invest back into the business. With these tools in hand, and insight into how they work, we are resetting our levers in September. Notably, Pandora plans to eliminate the blanket 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1st. In the 6 months since we first implemented the free mobile listening limitation, we have gained critical insights into our user population that has given us greater control of our business. Because of these insights Pandora has implemented both other surgical levers to control content cost and new features that will allow for greater product usage." It's not clear why the the reversal is being made -- be it uproar from loyal users or something else entirely -- but those who found themselves perturbed by such a notion will have plenty to celebrate in just a few days.
