Pandora’s Loss Poised To Become Gain For Investor Sirius XM

Pandora is struggling on almost every level, from monthly average users to revenue. This week Wall Street punished the streamer’s performance, more than halving its stock price in a single day. But Pandora’s loss appears poised to become Sirius XM’s gain, says MIDiA analyst Mark Mulligan. The successful satellite broadcaster…

Broker Genius Raises $15M For Dynamic Ticket Pricing

[UPDATED] New York based Broker Genius, developers of dynamic ticket pricing technology has secured a $15 million Series A round of funding from Boston-based growth equity firm Volition Capital. Broker Genius offers pricing automation technology in the live event secondary market. The travel industry uses similar technology to price flights…

Musical.ly Just Sold For $800M, But Its Already Peaked, says Mark Mulligan

Musical.ly may have just sold for an eye-popping $800 million to $1 billion, but the app is already beyond its peak writes MIDiA analyst Mark Mulligan. The reason for the slump, says Mulligan, is that Musical.ly concentrated on building features and not products. _____________________________ By analyst Mark Mulligan of MIDiA…

Addiction, Recovery, The Power of Music: Ricky Byrd’s Clean Getaway [INTERVIEW]

Here Chris Robley sat down to chat with Joan Jett guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ricky Byrd about addiction, recovery, and his non-profit Clean Getaway, which harnesses the power of music as a way of helping addicts. ____________________ Guest post by Chris Robley from CD Baby’s…

Kobalt Raises Additional $600 Million To Invest In Copyrights

Independent music rights management, publisher and label services firm Kobalt has raised an additional $600 million to acquire and monetize copyrights within its Kobalt Capital division. Kobalt had previously raised $205 million in multiple rounds, with Kobalt Capital previously raising an additional $350 million. _________________________________ Kobalt has has added $600…

4 Ways AI Startups Can Target The Music Business

AI has been on the rise for some time now, with things like speech recognition tech have gained ground owing to the popularity of mobile technology. The potential for voice recognition and AI tech to disrupt the music industry is also huge and, as of yet, untapped. _________________________ Guest post…

Why Rapper Mims Is Hot (Again)

Known for the hit "This Is Why I’m Hot" (circa 2007) Washington Heights rapper Mims is seeing new success with the RecordGram app, which allows both producers and aspiring artists to rent and lease beats, to the benefit of all parties involved. _______________________ Guest post by authur Zack O’Malley Greenburg…

Sony Music Pledges Money To Save London Music Venues

Venues world wide have been going through a rough patch recently, with high rents and stricter legal requirements, with London in particular seeing a lot of its venues bite the dust in recent years. In the wake of such closures, Sony Music has pledged to financially support ‘at risk’ venues…

Warner Music Responds To Songkick Concert Listing Concerns: ‘We’re still here for you"

After Songkick announced that it was shutting down its concert ticket sales division, many musicians and music marketers became concerned that Songkick’s popular concert app and artist focused Tourbox service was on the way out, as well. _____________________________________ "We’re not going anywhere!," the Songkick concert listing team wrote yesterday in…

Blockchain And The Music Industry: RAC, Nest HQ and UJO Music Offer A Beginners Guide [VIDEO]

Is blockchain just a buzzword or could it radically change the music industry? We think it’s the later, but understanding what blockchain is and does is confusing. Grammy winner RAC recently released his latest album EGO using the Ethereum blockchain via UJO Music, and this 6 minute documentary looks inside…