Pandora sings for web radio advertisers - San Francisco Business Times:

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Its service also lays the groundwork for fresb marketing initiatives that couldbenefit non-mainstreamk musicians, said Tim Westergren, founder and chiefv strategy officer. Some 85 percentt of advertisers are doing repeat business with which recently predicted that it couldc be profitablenext year. This year’s revenues are projected to double toabout $40 Westergren said. The service has 27 million registered 10 million active a and isadding 50,000 to 60,000 a day. “We’rwe the biggest radio in almost everymarket already, and we’re doublinhg in size annually, so we’ves been hiring fast and furiously to build up locao ad salespeople,” Westergren said.
Pandora can target ads by genre, artist and ZIP code. It can guarantee a specifiv number of ad impressions becausd it delivers the impressions only when a user has just takejnan action, such as giving a thumbs-up to approvs a song choice. The compang this month began offeringan ad-free premiumj service for $36 a year. Santa Barbara-based home musivc system manufacturer rana 30-day ad campaignb targeting exclusively IPhone users from mid-March to mid-Aprik on Pandora, and found the click-through rate to be “Far and away, it was the most successful campaig we’ve ever conducted,” said Sonos spokesman Thomae Meyer.
Westergren said he decided to makehis company’zs revenue public because advertisers had repeatedly questioneed the company’s health. Pandora has 135 30 of them hiredlast year, a dozem this year, and another dozen expectefd to be added by the end of 2009. Most employees are in the Oaklanf headquarters, and the company has offices in New Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Boston. One reaso Westergren feels so optimistic is thata two-year battle with recorcd companies and artists over how much Interney radio services should pay in royalties may be over.
, whicb collects royalties for copyright owners and is negotiating for therecordr labels, announced “a potential agreement” with webcasters. Also, Pandora has been rapidly adoptecd by IPhone and Blackberryusers — 5 millionb in 11 months, about 1 milliobn after two months respectively. Now that Pandor is solid, Westergren wants to develop toolxs tohelp non-mainstream musicians get money. For Pandora’s user preference data can be plottex on a map for an artist to decide whereeto tour. Pandora could also send emaile to fans alerting them to an upcoming show and offering ticketw or merchandisefor sale.
Seventy percent of the 650,00o songs in Pandora’s library are from artists not signed to arecorsd label, he said. “We give accesw and promotion to this huge sea of reallgy talented but otherwiseinvisible artists,” Westergren said.