Online music streaming service Pandora has reached a milestone of 50 million registered listeners. While the company has existed since 2006, it didn’t really catch on until 2008, around the time it became available on mobile platforms like the iPhone and Blackberry. As recently as last year, the company had struggled with profitability due to Internet royalty rulings. Things have turned around dramatically, however, and the company is poised to hit $100 million in revenue this year.
While it’s grown significantly in the past year, Pandora is poised to hit even more platforms, as they’ve unveiled an iPad app (Apple sold 300,000 of them over the weekend), and are set to debut in cars before year’s end. The major challenger to Pandora’s throne is Spotify, another streaming service that’s extremely popular in the UK and should make its debut over here sometime this year. Either way, it’s a win-win for music fans. While Pandora isn’t perfect, it’s pretty easy to build a station based around an artist you like that can potentially turn you on to new music.
