PANDORA SOUNDS OUT NEW INITIATIVE

Pandora has announced the acquisition of analytics provider Next Big Sound, which will expand the data capabilities of the streaming-radio giant's Artist Management Platform (AMP).

The result, founder/chief Tim Westergren says in a blog post, positions Pandora "to become the most powerful and effective marketing and promotions tool for artists, managers, agents, publishers, promoters, labels and brands across the music industry."

The New York-based Next Big Sound was founded in 2008 by CEO Alex White, CTO Samir Rayani and associates; it has been providing tracking of artists on social networks and other sites over time and providing comparative data on more than 486k acts. It's won various "Best New Startup" honors and incubator programs and began a book division in partnership with Macmillan last year.

Pandora rolled out AMP last year to offer detailed info about its 80 million users to rights holders; in February it added Artist Audio Messaging, which enables acts to directly communicate with Pandora users about releases, events and other developments.