[josh2600]

Great point. I'd argue that a partnership with Twitter is amongst two equal (or near equal) parties OR one where Twitter is the smaller player. A non-partnership relationship is all relationships with Twitter that are between Twitter and a smaller organization.

It's completely asinine to have two separate policies for small kids and big kids, yet that's what we see at Twitter. Is this an example of the 80/20 rule or something more sinister? I'm not sure.

One thing's for certain: I hate Twitter's monetization strategy not because it doesn't work but because I find it distasteful.

[hkmurakami]

>A non-partnership relationship is all relationships with Twitter that are between Twitter and a smaller organization.

Twitter is valued somewhere in the ballpark of $5BB, so every single streaming music provider (as opposed to the download/purchase platforms of Amazon/Apple/Google) is small fish compared to Twitter.

[josh2600]

Apple and Google are certainly not small fish... They're two of the highlighted companies, aren't they?

[hkmurakami]

Apologies if I wasn't clear. I had meant the music providers "other than" Apple/Google/Amazon.

(I believe Apple/Google/Amazon only provide discrete music downloads, rather than streaming services. Apologies if I had misconceptions about their service offerings)

[monkeyspaw]

Spotify has a $3 billion valuation as of last November. Pandora's value seems more in flux, but is probably somewhere in the 1-2 billion range.

That doesn't seem to me like they're small fish compared to twitter. given how much valuations fluctuate (Pandora was at $4 billion as recently as 2011), I think they're all in the same bin.

After all, Twitter's valuation is based on a less certain business model than the other providers, who have successfully implemented ads and premium accounts, and have paying customers.

[hkmurakami]

Wow I had no idea Spotify's valuation was that big. I stand corrected.

(Pandora is an interesting case, since they've publicly said that they're not going to be profitable for another 5 years...)

[josh2600]

Like I said, partnerships are on a more even footing than people that just consume the API.

Soundcloud is pretty big too.