Posts Tagged ‘Tim Westergren’

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is a cover boy — specifically, the cover of Fortune, as he was named the magazine’s 2010 Business Person of the Year.

Other tech and media movers and shakers to crack the list of 50 included Apple CEO Steve Jobs (No. 3), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (No. 4), Baidu CEO Robin Li (No. 6), Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (No. 7), Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos (No. 10), Google CEO Eric Schmidt (No. 11), Zynga CEO Mark Pincus (No. 12), IBM CEO Sam Palmisano (No. 15), salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff (No. 18), Andreessen Horowitz general partner Marc Andreessen (No. 19), Disney CEO Bob Iger (No. 22), Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (No. 24), Pandora founder Tim Westergren (No. 26), Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes (No. 27), DirecTV CEO Michael White (No. 32), Samsung Electronics CEO Geesung Choi (No. 39), Comcast CEO Brian Roberts (No. 43), and Mail.ru Group CEO Yuri Milner (No. 46).

Fortune reporter Peter Newcomb wrote on Hastings:

What does it take to be at the top of business in 2010? We searched for leaders who didn’t just crawl from the wreckage of the Great Recession, but sprinted from it. This year, Hastings has thrown his company’s muscle behind delivering television and movies over the Internet, risking his $2 billion-in-sales DVD-by-mail business. The result: a company that has grown from a gnat to a giant. Now when deals are made in media, the increasingly important question is, “What’s the Netflix piece?”

And Hastings told Fortune:

We are in a new race, and we are a player with some very large and substantial firms. Just to be in that league is an amazing place from where we were.

The Huffington Post launched Small Business America, a new, FedEx-sponsored blog focused on the emergence, development, and continued growth of small businesses in the United States.

Co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington posted on her blog:

The economy is not bouncing back anytime soon. Even worse, it’s clear that Washington is not up to the task of creating the conditions for the job growth the country so desperately needs. And as we find ourselves in the silliest stretch of the electoral silly season, it doesn’t inspire confidence that the government that emerges on Nov. 2 will do any better.

A deep-seated cynicism is not an unreasonable response. But I’m pleased to report that hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country are choosing to react by taking action. As a result, a parallel economy is being created by people who, finding that there are no jobs, have decided to create their own.

Through the creative use of technology, social media, and a focus on community, this new wave of small businesses is making its mark in a true convergence of left and right. At the moment, our government may be can’t-do, but more and more of our citizens are solidly can-do — and irrepressibly American.

To turn a spotlight on this nascent movement and encourage its continued growth, HuffPost is launching Small Business America, a new blog sponsored by FedEx, where entrepreneurs can exchange ideas, get advice, and keep up with the latest small business news. Small Business America’s contributors will run the gamut from CEOs to mom-and-pop business owners to policy-makers, business writers, professors, and social-media experts.

Some of those we’ll be featuring in our first week include: Aaron Patzer, founder of online personal finance site Mint; William Aulet, managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center; Karen Mills, administrator of the Small Business Administration; Tim Westergren, founder of online radio site Pandora; and Christopher Hytry Derrington, whose company helps firms outsource their work to rural America instead of overseas.

Small Business America will also feature the first-person accounts of people who have already jumped in and started their own business — as well as those thinking of taking the leap.

CNET News is reporting that the Senate has passed the Webcaster Settlement Act, the legislation that lays the groundwork for Web radio stations to negotiate reduced royalty rates for the songs they stream over the Internet.

The bill had already passed the House on Saturday; now President Bush is expected to sign it. “I’m relieved, optimistic, and grateful to our listeners,” said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, the Web radio station that’s been at the center of the fight since it began.

The report said that webcasters have long complained that the royalty rate to stream music is too high for Web radio stations to generate any profit. “Representatives from Internet radio and the music industry have been in negotiations for more than a year. Recently, the two sides have gotten closer to an agreement and both say they are confident a deal is within reach.”

Since the parties are seeking a statutory license, which lets them play songs without having to seek permission each time, Congress had to get involved. Here’s hoping Pandora and other Web radio sites stay alive and deliver mobile music to the masses for years to come.

Pandora, one of the nation’s most popular Internet radio services, may be on the verge of collapse, according to its founder in a Washington Post report. We’ve reported on it in the past, but to recap, Pandora’s Music Genome Project lets users create custom radio stations based on music they know they already like. This service has spawned a host of mobile initiatives, including versions for AT&T and Sprint phones as well as an iPhone app.

But due to royalty disputes with the major record labels—which have been going on for quite some time now—the end may be near. “We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision,” said Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora, in the article. “This is like a last stand for webcasting.”

At the heart of the problem: Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies, the report said. “Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.” The sides are still very far apart, according to the report.

(Image credit: Thor Swift/Washington Post)

With the future of Internet radio in doubt, it’s still hard not to like Pandora, one of the first and best online streaming music services. AppScout reports that Pandora has launched a free mobile version specifically for the iPhone 3G, now that the new device finally has enough bandwidth to stream audio without choking to death.

“We are thrilled to launch Pandora on the iPhone,” said Pandora founder Tim Westergren in the report. “The ability to offer a free, personalized streaming service on a mobile device marks an important new era for Internet radio. Apple’s revolutionary product is the ideal platform for listeners to experience Pandora on-the-go.”

Pandora has had limited mobile exposure in the past—notably, a $2.99/month version for Sprint, and later, an overpriced $8.99/month offering for AT&T—so this is welcome news indeed.