There are other home music players that can access Pandora, such as the . The Livio can also stream thousands of other Internet stations. However, the Livio's design and marketing acknowledge that there's a still-growing demographic of music fans who almost exclusively listen to Pandora.
Details on the Livio are still scarce, but the burning question is, how would Pandora's business model work on the device? The streaming service carries no ads or subscription fees. Rather, the company's revenue comes from ads served on . If you've got a Livio, there's not much reason to spend a lot of time at pandora.com.
I asked Livio's publicist Wednesday what kind of revenue Pandora will get from Livio, but have gotten no response. The most likely deal would be a licensing fee of some sort paid by Livio to Pandora. Given Pandora's -- the company's founder estimated that 70 percent of Pandora's projected 2009 revenue of $25 million would go to music industry royalties -- it makes sense that the company is testing other ways to make money.