Pandora switches up its classic listening experience with Modes

If you’ve ever tried Pandora, you know the basic deal. The service offers a more passive form of music discovery than other streaming services, encouraging users to let algorithms do most of the heavy lifting, as radio stations are generated based on thumbs up and down. Today, the company puts a new spin on the […]

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Transportation Weekly: Waymo unleashes laser bear, Bird spreads its wings, Lyft tightens its belt

Welcome back to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch . This is the fifth edition of our newsletter and we love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of TechCrunch’s Transportation Weekly? Catch up here, here and here. As I’ve written before, consider this a soft launch. Follow […]

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Pandora-powered channels will come to SiriusXM’s app this year

SiriusXM this week offered a few more details on how it plans to leverage its newest asset, Pandora, following its $3.5 billion acquisition of the streaming music service last year, which officially closes on Friday. At the time of the deal, the company spoke about the potential for cross-promotion opportunities between the services and new […]

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Several top Pandora executives, including CEO Roger Lynch, will leave after its acquisition by SiriusXM

Pandora announced today that shareholders have approved its $3.5 billion acquisition by SiriusXM. After the transaction closes, several key Pandora executives will leave, including CEO Roger Lynch, general counsel Steve Bene, CFO Naveen Chopra, and chief human resources officer Kristen Robinson. SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer will lead the combined company. Pandora and SiriusXM announced the […]

View More Several top Pandora executives, including CEO Roger Lynch, will leave after its acquisition by SiriusXM

TechCrunch Conversations: Direct listings

Last April, Spotify surprised Wall Street bankers by choosing to go public through a direct listing process rather than through a traditional IPO. Instead of issuing new shares, the company simply sold existing shares held by insiders, employees and investors directly to the market – bypassing the roadshow process and avoiding at least some of Wall […]

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Pandora launches a personalized voice assistant on iOS and Android

Pandora today announced the launch of its own, in-app voice assistant which you can call up at any time by saying “Hey Pandora,” followed by a request to play the music or podcasts you want to hear. The feature will allow you to not only control music playback with commands to play a specific artist, […]

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Waking up to your favorite music is easy as a dream — Clarification Please

No one likes waking up to the sound of an alarm clock, so why not wake up to your favorite song instead? Using your phone or a smart speaker, or inside a music app directly, you can ditch your alarm clock and wake up to something just a little more s…

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Pandora’s Podcast Genome Project goes live for all

Last month, Pandora announced it would soon be bringing its “Genome” technology to a new space outside of music: it would leverage a similar classification system to make podcast recommendations, too. Initially, the feature was only available to select users on mobile devices, ahead of a broader public launch. Today, Pandora says its Podcast Genome […]

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JioSaavn becomes India’s answer to Spotify and Apple Music

India finally has its answer to Spotify after Reliance Jio merged its music service with Saavn, the startup it acquired earlier this year. The deal itself isn’t new — it was announced back in March — but it has reached its logical conclusion after two apps were merged to create a single entity, JioSaavn, which is […]

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The battle over the driving experience is heating up and will be won in software  

Lou Shipley Contributor More posts by this contributor Why The Future Of Digital Security Is Open Sirius XM’s recent all-stock $3.5-billion purchase of the music-streaming service Pandora raised a lot of eyebrows. A big question was why Sirius paid so much. Is Pandora’s music library and customer base really worth that amount? The answer is […]

View More The battle over the driving experience is heating up and will be won in software  

Pandora Premium arrives on Echo and other Alexa devices

Pandora Premium is finally available on Echo devices. The streaming music company this morning announced its top-level paid subscription tier will launch across Alexa-powered devices, including the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show, as well as on all third-party Alexa devices that support Pandora. The company’s free, ad-supported music service has been available on […]

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Pandora brings its Genome technology to podcast recommendations

Earlier this year, Pandora challenged Spotify’s personalization capabilities by using its Music Genome technology to create dozens of customized playlists for its users. Today, it will begin leveraging similar technology to do the same for podcasts. The Podcast Genome Project, as it’s called, is now powering a new recommendation system that will be combined with […]

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