Topic: Content
Pandora Reducing Workforce by 7% – Variety (Jan 12, 2017)
Pandora is one of the longest-standing music streaming services in the US, and yet it is perennially challenged to make a decent profit. Today, it announced it’s cutting 7% of its US workforce to refocus its business, though it hasn’t said which bits are being cut and which are now considered core. My guess is that this is a reflection of the imminent launch of its subscription all-you-can-eat service and perhaps a de-emphasis on its traditional radio-style business, but more clarity will likely emerge soon. This is just another indicator of just how tough it can be to make money in streaming music, despite the boon paid music subscriptions have been to the music labels in the last couple of years.
via Pandora Reducing Workforce by 7% | Variety
Apple Sets Its Sights on Hollywood With Plans for Original Content – WSJ (Jan 12, 2017)
Apple has been investing in video content for a while now, with the unusual strategy of pushing most of it to subscribers through a music service, rather than a dedicated video service. On the one hand, it’s a way to set Apple Music apart, and to the extent that there’s been something of a music theme to some of this video content, that makes sense too. But I still think this investment is really laying the groundwork for an eventual subscription video service from Apple, using the Music investments as cover. At this point, Apple has to get into the video subscription business if it’s to protect its ecosystem around content, much as it belatedly got into streaming music. The exact shape of that service – whether Hulu-, Netflix-, or DirecTV Now-like, is still unclear. I suspect it’ll launch by the end of this year, however, and this kind of original, exclusive content is increasingly essential for differentiation regardless of which of these models it pursues.
via Apple Sets Its Sights on Hollywood With Plans for Original Content – WSJ
Facebook says it’s going to try to help journalism ‘thrive’ – Recode (Jan 11, 2017)
This news (FB’s own blog post here) should obviously be taken together with the hiring of Campbell Brown as head of news partnerships at Facebook, announced last week. It’s easy to see this as being about the whole fake news story, and there’s an element of that, but this goes much further than that. What’s interesting is the number of value judgments in Facebook’s own post about this – it isn’t neutral here when it comes to fostering news sites, and local news in particular. That’s clearly in its interests, but it goes further than that too. It’s also very sensibly looking at business models beyond display ads for monetizing news content on Facebook, something the industry needs as Facebook becomes the place where many of their readers consume their content.
via Facebook says it’s going to try to help journalism ‘thrive’ – Recode
How Snapchat will change the music industry in 2017 – Mashable (Jan 10, 2017)
This is really mostly about what Snapchat is doing today with musicians, and the answer is pretty interesting – adding audio to filters, for example. In contrast to Snapchat’s general unwillingness to engage in a special way with celebrities, this approach shows it is willing to provide tools for musicians and others to promote themselves and new content. Music has always held special appeal for mobile platforms because of the emotional appeal, and Snap appears to on board too.
via How Snapchat will change the music industry in 2017 – Mashable
Facebook Hires Campbell Brown to Lead News Partnerships Team – The New York Times (Jan 6, 2017)
This is yet another step in Facebook’s evolving vision of its identity. Campbell Brown isn’t going to be producing news for Facebook, but rather working with news organizations that use Facebook, but it’s a recognition that news is a huge content category on the service, and that many people get their news through Facebook. It will be very interesting to see how this role pans out in detail, and whether it feels Facebook is really helping news organizations, especially when set against recent moves to combat fake news.
via Facebook Hires Campbell Brown to Lead News Partnerships Team – The New York Times
ESPN takes you inside a college football rivalry with VR (Dec 30, 2016)
Though high-quality gaming content exists, other top-notch content for VR is still pretty experimental, so seeing a brand like ESPN investing in VR content is a good sign. For this kind of thing, VR is obviously still a far better fit than AR, and immersive video content in general will be critical for taking VR beyond gaming.
via ESPN takes you inside a college football rivalry with VR
Amazon tries to recreate Prime Day magic with the first-ever Digital Day sales event | TechCrunch (Dec 28, 2016)
Amazon has used Prime Day as well as regular Gold Box and holiday sales as ways to boost sales of physical goods, but it’s now trying something similar with digital goods. Media sales (incorporating both physical and digital media) account for about 18-20% of total revenue for Amazon, but have been growing far more slowly than general physical merchandise, so deals like this are intended to boost that growth, especially driven by new devices sold over the holidays. However, as with most of Amazon’s sales, there are a few loss leaders here designed to drive sales of many other items sold at Amazon’s usual margins.
via Amazon tries to recreate Prime Day magic with the first-ever Digital Day sales event | TechCrunch
Amazon Prime Video’s Global Launch Looks Soft, But It’s a Game-changer | Variety (Dec 27, 2016)
It’s clear that Amazon has felt the need to compete with Netflix’s global launch almost a year ago, but its own global offering is sparse and inconsistent. The lack of localization (or in some cases any local offering at all) is one of the most overlooked issues in consumer tech – so many services we take for granted in the US simply don’t exist or are pale imitations of themselves in other markets. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix have all done well to make their offerings at least somewhat global, but Amazon is still very early in this game.
via Amazon Prime Video’s Global Launch Looks Soft, But It’s a Game-changer | Variety
Snapchat Plays Hard to Get With Celebrities and Influencers – The New York Times (Dec 23, 2016)
Snap (formerly Snapchat) continues to do things differently from almost every other social network out there (though Facebook is imitating it lately). This article details Snap’s approach of treating celebrities like any other user, which is in keeping with its focus on authenticity, but can also be frustrating for big names.
via Snapchat Plays Hard to Get With Celebrities and Influencers – The New York Times
Jaunt VR App Launches on PlayStation VR | Variety (Dec 23, 2016)
Content remains a critical component of making VR both mainstream and successful, and Jaunt is one of the interesting companies making non-gaming VR content happen. Getting its content onto all the major platforms is a big step.
via Jaunt VR App Launches on PlayStation VR | Variety
Disney-ABC to Produce Snapchat Original Series | Variety (Dec 21, 2016)
One of the biggest challenges facing Snap as it approaches an IPO is providing advertisers with the products and tools they need to make markedly bigger investments on the platform. Getting more professionally produced video content onboard is one way to go about that, and I’m betting this won’t be the last of these deals.
via Disney-ABC Snapchat Shows: ‘The Bachelor’ Watch Party Aftershow | Variety