Pandora To Acquire Big Data Numbers Cruncher

Brian McAndrews

Pandora Tuesday said it bought music analytics company Next Big Sound, another pitch to artists and labels that Pandora's accumulation of data makes it a valuable partner, according to CNET.

Pandora said the terms of the deal and the purchase price were confidential. Next Big Sound, which is based in New York, has more than 20 employees.

The move is the company's latest attempt to retune how the music industry views Pandora from aggravation to friend.

Launched in 2009, Next Big Sound analyzes music data to help the industry understand the relationship between social media and revenue, see the effect of marketing and promotional events like new releases and TV appearances and help identify high-potential artists early.

Pandora Chief Executive Brian McAndrews said the combination of Pandora's listening data and Next Big Sound's analytical capabilities will create a vital source of information. As the biggest ongoing site of streamed music on the Internet -- excluding, perhaps, YouTube -- Pandora has unrivaled data on online listening habits. For example, listeners have clicked a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on song playing via Pandora more than 50 billion times.