Pandora

In a recent post I mentioned one of my favorite Facebook applications, Pandora.  I thought I would take the opportunity to give some more insight about Pandora (and Microsoft), as well as some recent updates that are very exciting. 

To say that Pandora is radio over the Internet is just not telling the whole story.  Pandora enables you to create your own stations based on the type of music you enjoy, or your favorite artist.  Then Pandora (and the Music Genome Project) will stream your favorite music and will find and stream songs / artists with interesting similarities to your favorites.  Its a great way to listen to your favorite music and discover new music.

Over this last year, I/we have been very excited to work with Pandora on a number of initiatives, and the Microsoft partnership.  It includes Pandora powering MSN Radio,

as well as integration (MSN Radio Tab) with Windows Live Messenger.

Recently, Pandora released some new features to its “radio tuner” (not Silverlight based) called Pandora Extras.  The new functionality enables new social networking features and music recommendation features. 

 

Great innovation, great listener experience! 

Microsoft’s Fascination / Investment in Facebook

I thought I would think about the “deal” a couple of days before sharing my thoughts.  I will let you digest the details, but essentially, we invested $240 million to gain a small stake in Facebook (1.6 percent of the 15 billion valuation) and we would expand our current advertising partnership. 

First, I think its of value to understand the “social network” experience on Facebook.  I have been a Facebook user for several months, with friends and colleagues on my friends list.  I have joined groups with some of them, wrote on each other’s walls, changed my status on occasion, even dared poking a friend.  I have added some applications (like Pandora) as well.  But, I have still not had the – “wow, this is amazing” experience, that “ah ha moment”.  I am not sure I have personally experienced the value of Facebook for me.  Joe Wilcox points out that at about 50 million users on Facebook, and a valuation of $15 billion, that it puts a value of each user at about $300!  Really…I just don’t see how that value is extracted or realized in just connecting with friends.  MySpace for $580 million now seems like a great bargain!

So, why make the investment?  Is it all about advertising and eyeballs?  Certainly, that is a big part of it.  But could it be more than that?  Could it be Facebook’s platform? 

I was recently meeting with a customer that discussed the announcement with me and postulated on the possibilities between Microsoft SharePoint Server, Windows Live, and Facebook.  Interesting…