We reported on streaming playlists service Songza’s new funding round earlier in the week (Bulletin, 11-Sep-13), but now CEO Elias Roman has been talking to Forbes about how the service is growing. Key stats: Songza now has 4.7m monthly active users who are being served up more than 70m minutes of music a day. Which by our maths means 35m listener hours a month. For comparison, Pandora had 72.1m active users and 1.35bn listener hours in August, so while Pandora averages 18.7 monthly hours per active user, Songza averages 7.4. Roman also shrugs off questions about Apple’s iTunes Radio (“We’re doing something very different: our users don’t necessarily care who else sounds like Adele. They care about how to make their next football tailgate or workout better…”) And that’s why Songza is now describing itself as a “lifestyle-enhancement” company rather than a music service. “Music isn’t a product that we actively consume for the sake of consuming it. It’s a means to an end: improving the things we do and feel.” Frustratingly, Forbes’ journalist – who admits to being an investor in Songza – doesn’t ask any questions about revenues and profitability.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…