Record bosses now hope that online streaming could become a big enough business to arrest their industry’s long decline
|OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA|7 min read
AT THE headquarters of Pandora, an online-radio firm, in Oakland, about a dozen headphone-clad analysts fill in a long questionnaire as they listen. They rank whether a song’s mood is “joyful” or “hostile”, the vocalist “breathy” or “gravelly”. They note whether they can hear electric guitars, lutes or bagpipes. Their ratings help to shape algorithms that push music to the service’s 76m users.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Beliebing in streaming”
From the March 22nd 2014 edition
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