The XOXO conference won’t be coming back next year. Veronica Belmont attended and talks with Tom Merritt about what makes it special and how its independent Web spirit can live on.
Using a Screen Reader? Click here
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
Follow us on Soundcloud.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
Per seepea’s email about Pandora, one reason they may not get mentioned as much as Spotify: Money. While both companies have posted net losses since 2012, look at their revenue, Spotify reported $1.9 billion in 2015 (http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-revenues-topped-2bn-last-year-as-losses-hit-194m/) vs Pandora’s $466 million (http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/p/financials). Spotify is aggressively pursuing content with that money, whereas Pandora’s service and business model have been reliably unchanged (relatively). Pandora’s income has grown significantly in the past 2 years, but the nature of its business model (paying royalties at a hard rate no matter how many users they have) puts very real limits into how they can grow over time (or even remain viable), whereas Spotify has a chance to dictate to the music industry with their scale, presuming they can continue to grow at a fast enough clip to keep the labels happy while revenue grows. Basically Pandora seems like it will always be a service that right now still has a ton of users, but Spotify is a platform that’s at the forefront of shaping the music industry (for better or worse).
I love the content that Veronica brings, and her personality as well, but is there anything that can be done about the sound? Since she took the new job, the audio quality has been slightly painful on her days. If not, I understand that the job may have to come first.