Curation works better than recommenders.
To my great surprise, I continue to discover new acts, music thru the radio. Just like when I was kid.
KBCS.fm and KEXP.org have great speciality shows. They also do a good job of posting their play lists, streaming archives, linking to artists, promoting upcoming shows, etc.
I've rarely discovered new stuff from a recommender (Pandora, last.fm, whatever). Now I don't even bother.
But I do rediscover music (from my youth) via YouTube. Which is a delight.
If mining radio playlists stops working for me, I'd be willing to try something like Apple Beat's notion.
Radio is still the most important music discovery media: https://d28wbuch0jlv7v.cloudfront.net/images/infografik/norm....
Notably, that chart puts Pandora discovery at a meaningful 10%.
Aside: I very much want to use scrobble (or equiv) to consolidate all my faves. It's on my ever growing to do list.
This sounds like a version of Russell and Norvig's Mengitis question. The probability you have a stiff neck if you have meningitis is 70%. But what is the probability that you have meningitis if you have a stiff neck? Keep in mind that Meningitis is 1/50,000 cases but stiff necks are 1/100 cases. Answer: 0.14%, quite small.
Similarly, the probability that you are on Pandora if you are discovered is 1/10. But what is the probability that you are discovered if you're on Pandora? Likely very, very, very small.
I'm not sure that's what the analysis is saying. I think the analysis is saying, "among discoverers, when discovery occurred, the discoverer was using [CHANNEL] with X% probability".
To me this says more about the weakness of the alternatives than about the strength of Pandora. At least it's possible to hear new music on Pandora. It's sad what a lowest common denominator echo chamber terrestrial radio has become.
Consider this typical everyday sort of press release we see in the industry all the time these days: http://www.musicrow.com/2014/03/clear-channel-bbr-music-grou...
Payola: Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on commercial radio in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under U.S. law, 47 U.S.C. ยง 317, a radio station can play a specific song in exchange for money, but this must be disclosed on the air as being sponsored airtime, and that play of the song should not be counted as a "regular airplay".
Revenue sharing agreements? SMH.
Imagine you're an independent artist. That's the hurdle you have to be able to cross in order to get access to discovery platforms. This includes access to choice Spotify or YouTube playlists, satellite and Internet radio, and other conventional discovery mechanisms.
At $0.0001/stream typical, Pandora itself cannot ever add up to meaningful income for a non-hit artist. Most of the income for the non-hit artist will come from that core group of committed fans who buy everything the artist makes, contribute to kickstarters, and shows up at all the concerts.
As a discovery tool Pandora's value is debatable. My anecdotal experience is that of all the various ways that I and other artists I know have made fans, Pandora was never one. YMMV.
(Update: I just found a bit a data that states that Pandora accounts for ~10% of new music discovery which is a lot better than I would have guessed.)