Page 105 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

84 3 Retailing in Electronic Commerce: Products and Services

millions of players. For information on entertainment in the casting service that enables users to listen online to thousands
Web 2.0 environment and social networks, see Chapter 8. of radio stations (e.g., over 4000 in Europe, see listenlive.
eu). The service can broadcast anything that is on the radio
iTunes stations plus broadcasts from organizations, governments,
and even individuals (radio.about.com/od/listentoradioon-
iTunes (apple.com/itunes) is a media management software line/qt/bl-InternetRadio.htm). Internet radio has the same
by Apple that includes an online store for buying music and copyright issues as those of Internet TV. Note that, in many
other media. The program also enables you to organize and cases, there is an agreement between the content creators and
play the digital items you downloaded. Note that iTunes and the distributors (e.g., Warner Music and Apple reached an
similar services have basically crushed the music industry iTunes Radio deal in 2013; see cnet.com/news/apple-
(see money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/technology/itunes- music- reaches-iradio-deal-with-warner-music- suggesting-
decline), similar to the way netflix.com has impacted the sale wwdc-launch and apple.com/itunes/itunes-radio).
of DVDs and CDs. A 2014 study by Asymco found at asymco.
com/2014/02/10/fortune-130 discovered that iTunes is more Pandora Radio
profitable than Xerox and Time Warner Cable (see wallst-
cheatsheet.com/stocks/study-itunes-is-more-profitable- Pandora is a leading free Internet radio that delivers music
than-xerox-and-time-warner-cable.html/?a=viewall). not only from radio stations but also from many other
sources. The core of the service is the Music Genome Project.
Online Ticketing According to pandora.com/about, the project is an inclu-
sive analysis of thousands of musical pieces. All the music in
This popular service enables customers to buy tickets for the project is available on Pandora for your listening
events (e.g., sports, music, theater) by using a computer or pleasure.
mobile device. Companies such as Ticketmaster, Inc. are Pandora is actually a music streaming and automated
active in this area. Fandango is a company that sells movie music recommendation service that in 2016 is available
theater tickets. only in the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Users can
create up to 100 personalized stations that play pre-arranged
selections. In February 2014, the company opened up its
Internet TV and Internet Radio content submission process to independent artists (see sub-
mit.pandora.com, help.pandora.com/customer/portal/
Two similar streaming technologies are popular on the Web: articles/24802-information-for-artists-submitting-to-
Internet TV and Internet Radio. pandora and Hockenson 2014). For Pandora’s Help Center,
see help.pandora.com.
Internet TV Various e-tailers offer songs for sale to Pandora’s listen-
ers. You can access Pandora through many streaming media
Internet TV is the delivery of TV content via the Internet by devices. You can enjoy Pandora for free on the Web, on
video streaming technologies. The content includes TV home-listening devices, and most mobile devices. Pandora
shows, sporting events, movies, and other videos. Several One (pandora.com/one) has a monthly fee, but the benefits
video-on-demand and subscription services, such as netflix. include ad-free service and higher quality audio. Pandora is
com, hulu.com, and hulu.com/plus, as well as amazon. a profitable business. Its subscriber base continues to grow;
com/Prime-Instant-Video offer this service. For a compre- in March of 2014, it had 75.3 million active listeners (inves-
hensive description of Internet TV, see wisegeek.org/what- tor.pandora.com/file/Index?KeyFile=22417465).
is- internet-tv.htm. The major advantage is the ability to
select what and when to view content and the ability to do so
from computers, tablets, smartphones, Blue-Ray consoles, Social Television (TV)
Apple TV (apple.com/appletv), Roku (roku.com), Google
Chromecast (google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chrome- Social TV is an emerging social media technology that
cast), Aereo (aereo.com), and so forth. In order to compete enables several TV viewers who are in different locations to
with other channels, traditional channels have developed an interactively share experiences such as discussions, reviews,
online presence, such as HBO (hbo.com). and recommendations while watching the same show
simultaneously. According to Mashable.com (mashable.
Internet Radio com/category/social-tv), social TV is “the union of televi-
sion and social media” and refers to “the phenomenon of
Known by several other names, Internet radio refers to people communicating with each other while watching a
audio content transmitted live via the Internet. It is a broad- TV show or discussing with each other about television