With all of the headlines about streaming services over the past few months—focusing on Spotify, TIDAL, Soundcloud and Apple—Pandora has somehow managed to stay somewhat under the radar. Their latest move has put them back in the spotlight and possibly given them a major edge over their competitors in managing data. The San Francisco-based company just bought the six-year-old music data analysis company Next Big Sound.
Next Big Sound analyzes data points to determine an artists's popularity on mediums like Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and elsewhere. It has helped quantify the relationship between social media and revenue, something artists have been struggling to do for years. It sells that analysis, which is crunched using various complex algorithms to record companies and other outlets including Billboard, which uses it prominently in its charts. Next Big Sound's reports are often written about in the press.
Details for the deal have not been disclosed at this point. Spotify made a similar move last year to purchase data crunching firm Echo Nest for $49.5 million, which could have been used as a reference point.
"The combination of Pandora's listening data and Next Big Sound's analytical capabilities will create a vital source of data," said Brian McAndrews, CEO at Pandora in a statement. "Next Big Sound shares our passion for music and respect for those who make it. I'm incredibly excited to unleash the combined potential of our two companies and have the Next Big Sound team join us."
"We are thrilled to be joining Pandora," said Alex White, CEO at Next Big Sound. "In them, we've found a great partner who, like us, believes data has the power to transform the music industry."
The move comes as Pandora has rolled out several new data-driven features in the past eight months including their Artist Marketing Platform (AMP) that offers all sorts of new insights for musicians, as well as Artist Audio Messaging.
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