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marikejp

The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace - Businessweek - 0 views

  • "After we left, the guys that took over were never Myspace users," says DeWolfe, who now runs a startup called MindJolt. "They didn't have it in their DNA."
  • One of the site's first breakthroughs, for example, came by accident. Shortly after launching in August 2003, Myspace developers realized they had accidentally permitted users to insert Web markup code, allowing them to play around with the background colors and personalize their pages, leading to the site's kaleidoscopic, techno-junkyard aesthetic, which became its trademark.
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    "Jackson still hustles for attention on the lower rungs of fame-he currently stars in season five of Celebrity Rehab, in which he battles his addiction to growth hormones for cable television viewers."
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    "Jackson still hustles for attention on the lower rungs of fame-he currently stars in season five of Celebrity Rehab, in which he battles his addiction to growth hormones for cable television viewers."
marikejp

The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace - Businessweek - 0 views

  • And it was becoming clear that Myspace's global effort—fueled by extravagant new offices around the world (the Smashing Pumpkins headlined the rollout in Madrid)—wasn't working. Facebook was attracting international users at a rapid rate without the expense of opening offices. Facebook was winning.
  • "O.K., so you're going to have three guys to run this company that have really never worked together and have really never been on the site and don't really understand it?" DeWolfe asks. "It was a bad decision."
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    "Jackson still hustles for attention on the lower rungs of fame-he currently stars in season five of Celebrity Rehab, in which he battles his addiction to growth hormones for cable television viewers."
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    "Jackson still hustles for attention on the lower rungs of fame-he currently stars in season five of Celebrity Rehab, in which he battles his addiction to growth hormones for cable television viewers."
wstrahan

Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah - 0 views

    • wstrahan
       
      Neo-colonialism isn't a problem until it's being used to impoverish less developed countries, rather than help develop them.
  • Non-alignment, as practised by Ghana and many other countries, is based on co-operation with all States whether they be capitalist, socialist or have a mixed economy. Such a policy, therefore, involves foreign investment from capitalist countries, but it must be invested in accordance with a national plan drawn up by the government of the non-aligned State with its own interests in mind.
    • wstrahan
       
      Countries like Ghana choose not to align with an economic policy like capitalism or socialism in order to trade with all countries based on their own national plan.
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  • The growth of nuclear weapons has made out of date the old-fashioned balance of power which rested upon the ultimate sanction of a major war. Certainty of mutual mass destruction effectively prevents either of the great power blocs from threatening the other with the possibility of a world-wide war, and military conflict has thus become confined to ‘limited wars’. For these neo-colonialism is the breeding ground.
    • wstrahan
       
      Nuclear weapons have increased the growth in neo-colonialism. Larger economic countries such as the U.S. and Russia would rather avoid a world war and nuclear mass destruction by fighting "limited wars"
  • Limited war, once embarked upon, achieves a momentum of its own. Of this, the war in South Vietnam is only one example. It escalates despite the desire of the great power blocs to keep it limited. While this particular war may be prevented from leading to a world conflict, the multiplication of similar limited wars can only have one end-world war and the terrible consequences of nuclear conflict.
  • Neo-colonialism is also the worst form of imperialism. For those who practise it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress.
  • In the days of old-fashioned colonialism, the imperial power had at least to explain and justify at home the actions it was taking abroad.
  • Neo-colonialism, like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries.
  • The problem which faced the wealthy nations of the world at the end of the second world war was the impossibility of returning to the pre-war situation in which there was a great gulf between the few rich and the many poor. Irrespective of what particular political party was in power, the internal pressures in the rich countries of the world were such that no post-war capitalist country could survive unless it became a ‘Welfare State’. There might be differences in degree in the extent of the social benefits given to the industrial and agricultural workers, but what was everywhere impossible was a return to the mass unemployment and to the low level of living of the pre-war years.
  • In the past it was possible to convert a country upon which a neo-colonial regime had been imposed — Egypt in the nineteenth century is an example — into a colonial territory.
  • The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.
  • e, but neo-
  • The neo-colonial State may be obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from elsewhere. Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power.
  • Where neo-colonialism exists the power exercising control is often the State which formerly ruled the territory in question, but this is not necessarily so. For example, in the case of South Vietnam the former imperial power was France, but neo-colonial control of the State has now gone to the United States.
  • The control of the Congo by great international financial concerns is a case in point.
  • The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world.
  • The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.
  • The system of neo-colonialism was therefore instituted and in the short run it has served the developed powers admirably. It is in the long run that its consequences are likely to be catastrophic for them
  • Neo-colonialism is based upon the principle of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defence and even internal security. Their economic and financial systems are linked, as in colonial days, with those of the former colonial ruler.
  • In the neo-colonialist territories, since the former colonial power has in theory relinquished political control, if the social conditions occasioned by neo-colonialism cause a revolt the local neo-colonialist government can be sacrificed and another equally subservient one substituted in its place.
  • The introduction of neo-colonialism increases the rivalry between the great powers which was provoked by the old-style colonialism. However little real power the government of a neo-colonialist State may possess, it must have, from the very fact of its nominal independence, a certain area of manoeuvre. It may not be able to exist without a neo-colonialist master but it may still have the ability to change masters.
  • The ideal neo-colonialist State would be one which was wholly subservient to neo-colonialist interests but the existence of the socialist nations makes it impossible to enforce the full rigour of the neo-colonialist system. The existence of an alternative system is itself a challenge to the neo-colonialist regime. Warnings about ‘the dangers of Communist subversion are likely to be two-edged since they bring to the notice of those living under a neo-colonialist system the possibility of a change of regime.
  • In fact neo-colonialism is the victim of its own contradictions. In order to make it attractive to those upon whom it is practised it must be shown as capable of raising their living standards, but the economic object of neo-colonialism is to keep those standards depressed in the interest of the developed countries.
  • Their manufacturers naturally object to any attempt to raise the price of the raw materials which they obtain from the neo-colonialist territory in question, or to the establishment there of manufacturing industries which might compete directly or indirectly with their own exports to the territory.
  • In the end the situation arises that the only type of aid which the neo-colonialist masters consider as safe is ‘military aid’.
  • Once a neo-colonialist territory is brought to such a state of economic chaos and misery that revolt actually breaks out then, and only then, is there no limit to the generosity of the neo-colonial overlord, provided, of course, that the funds supplied are utilised exclusively for military purposes.
  • Military aid in fact marks the last stage of neo-colonialism and its effect is self-destructive. Sooner or later the weapons supplied pass into the hands of the opponents of the neo-colonialist regime and the war itself increases the social misery which originally provoked it.
  • Nowhere has it proved successful, either in raising living standards or in ultimately benefiting countries which have indulged in it.
  • This book is therefore an attempt to examine neo-colonialism not only in its African context and its relation to African unity, but in world perspective. Neo-colonialism is by no means exclusively an African question. Long before it was practised on any large scale in Africa it was an established system in other parts of the world
  • ‘The industrial nations have added nearly $2 billion to their reserves, which now approximate $52 billion. At the same time, the reserves of the less-developed group not only have stopped rising, but have declined some $200 million. To analysts such as Britain’s Miss Ward, the significance of such statistics is clear: the economic gap is rapidly widening “between a white, complacent, highly bourgeois, very wealthy, very small North Atlantic elite and everybody else, and this is not a very comfortable heritage to leave to one’s children.”
  • ‘For the vast majority of mankind the most urgent problem is not war, or Communism, or the cost of living, or taxation. It is hunger. Over 1,500,000,000 people, some-thing like two-thirds of the world’s population, are living in conditions of acute hunger, defined in terms of identifiable nutritional disease.
  • What is lacking are any positive proposals for dealing with the situation. All that The Wall Street Journal’s correspondent can do is to point out that the traditional methods recommended for curing the evils are only likely to make the situation worse.
anonymous

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES GAMES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES Robert... - 0 views

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    Robert Godwin-Jones, Virginia Commonwealth University There has been a substantial increase in recent years in the interest in using digital games for language learning. This coincides with the explosive growth in multiplayer online gaming and with the proliferation of mobile games for smart phones. It also reflects the growing recognition among educators of the importance of extramural, informal learning and the interest in finding ways to connect learning to students' real lives....number of practical and pedagogical obstacles in the way of incorporating gaming into instructed language learning... what kind of games to choose or to create; how to find the opportunities for language learning within gameplay; and how to integrate gameplay and its associated activities into the curriculum. APA Citation: Godwin-Jones, R. (2014). Games in language learning: Opportunities and challenges. Language Learning & Technology 18(2), 9-19 Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2014/emerging.pdf
marikejp

The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace - Businessweek - 0 views

  • Jackson still hustles for attention on the lower rungs of fame—he currently stars in season five of Celebrity Rehab, in which he battles his addiction to growth hormones for cable television viewers.
  • this year
    • marikejp
       
      (2011)
  • "Getting people to come back to something that in their minds has become less useful is an incredible challenge on the Web—just ask AOL,"
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  • LinkedIn (LNKD) valued at $6.4 billion
  • Many Myspace pages appear to be host bodies for the worst kinds of advertising parasites. On the upper right-hand corner of the page for Zaiko Langa Langa, an African band Googled at random, a photo of a blonde in a tight T-shirt appears, asking, "Want a Girlfriend? View Hundreds of Pics HERE!"
  • Mismanagement, a flawed merger, and countless strategic blunders have accelerated Myspace's fall from being one of the most popular websites on earth—one that promised to redefine music, politics, dating, and pop culture—to an afterthought.
zhaowv

'League of Legends' makes big league moves - 0 views

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    Growth of gaming. Less reclusive. Popular.
jdinhhh

Human Trafficking in East Asia | Foreign Policy Journal - 0 views

  • Interestingly, reports estimate that 30% to 40% of this is unregulated traffic. It is unclear how much of this migration flow is human trafficking, but it is clear that at the very least, a significant portion of it is.
  • An amplification in the demand for domestic servants in developed countries combined with unemployment of women in developing countries has seen the growth of entire organized crime gangs devoted to fulfilling this need, albeit illegally.
  • according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), sexual exploitation is the “most commonly-identified form of human trafficking.”
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  • Consider the one-child policy in China that has lead to a skewed gender ratio. Because of this, brides are ‘sold’ for a premium across China.
  • Trafficking plays a cyclical role with organized crime, and we must strike at both to render the world safe.
wstrahan

Greece is standing up to EU neocolonialism | Costas Douzinas and Petros Papaconstantino... - 0 views

  • The bailout of Greece is not a gift or grant but a loan bearing high interest.
  • According to IMF estimates, Greece will pay €131bn in refinancing and interest payments between 2009 and 2014, far more than the initial bailout loan of €110bn.
  • The European governments now propose to offer a second loan, if Greece accepts an even more odious set of measures and sells off the family silver.
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  • The privatisation plan includes the sale of 17% of the public power corporation, the engineroom of growth, which will remove the state's controlling interest.
  • Under the new plan, foreign emissaries will be assigned to the main ministries and the company set up to privatise public wealth.
  • The market value of this stake is just €400m, because of the stock exchange decline. But the corporation owns 15 power plants and the budget for a new plant about to be built is €1.3bn.
  • The loss of economic sovereignty is accompanied by unprecedented attacks on the political and legal integrity of the country.
  • Under the new plan, foreign emissaries will be assigned to the main ministries and will run the companies that will privatise the public wealth.
Mirna Shaban

World Development book case study: the role of social networking in the Arab Spring -- ... - 0 views

  • The start of the unrest was in Tunisia and the spark was the self-immolation of a market stallholder, Mohammed Bouaziz, on 10 December 2010.
  • he first reported use of social networking websites by dissident groups taking part in a civil revolt was in Moldova, a small country between Romania and Ukraine, in April 2009.
  • The internet is useful for information dissemination and news gathering, social media for connecting and co-ordinating groups and individuals, mobile phones for taking photographs of what is happening and making it available to a wide global audience and satellite television for instant global reporting of events.
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  • For dissident groups, all of these digital tools allow them to bring together remote and often disparate groups and give them channels to bypass the conventional media, which is usually state controlled and unwilling to broadcast any news of civil unrest and opposition to the government.
  • Rapid internet interaction through Twitter and Facebook gave information to the protesters about how to counteract the security forces as they tried to disperse the protesters, maps showing locations for protest meetings and practical advice about such things as what to do when teargas is used against groups of protesters.
  • The governments in Tunisia and Egypt were very unhappy about the often brutal images of repression of the protests by government security forces and both governments tried to block the social-networking sites. In Tunisia, the effect was to increase the size of protest demonstrations and the Tunisian president, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, was forced to change his strategy. He apologized for blocking the sites and reopened them. He offered to open talks with the dissident groups but by that time it was too late to save his government. He resigned on 16 January and an interim coalition government was set up.
  • The Egyptian government’s decision to cut all communication systems, including the internet and mobile phones, on the night of 27 January was widely perceived to be a watershed moment in the overthrow of the Mubarak government.
  • Egyptian protest sympathizers were unable to watch events on their computers and televisions and joined the demonstrators in Tahrir Square instead.
  • The Mubarak government stepped down on 12 February and was replaced by a military council purporting to support democratic change.
  • China has taken much firmer control of its internet as a result of events in Arab countries, fearing a contagion effect. After an internet call for popular revolt in February, over 100 activists are reported to have ‘disappeared’.
  • There is an argument to be made that the role of technology in these events has been overstated. The frequent cry is that it was not laptops that marched on Tahrir Square but people with a common cause that they had already identified. As far as they are concerned, revolution is nothing new and the impact of the new technology in the Arab Spring has mostly been reported by people who are using the technology themselves. Its importance, they say, has been exaggerated.
  • In the Western world, Twitter is a device that is most frequently used to comment on relatively minor media or personal events, such as the behaviour of a particular celebrity. In Egypt and Tunisia its use proved to be much more political and effective – not social networking, just networking.
  • The difficulties are immense: regional poverty, tensions over the use of resources such as oil and water, religious divisions within countries, rapid population growth and, more threatening than any of those, relationships between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
jurasovaib

Cervical cancer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Cervical cancer is cancer arising from the cervix.[1] It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body.[2] Early on there are typically no symptoms. Later symptoms may include: abnormal vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain or pain during sex.[1]
  • Cervical cancer typically develops from precancerous changes over 10 to 20 years
  • HPV vaccines protect against two high risk strains of this family of viruses and may prevent up to 65 to 75% of cervical cancers
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  • Worldwide, cervical cancer is both the fourth most common cause of cancer and the fourth most common cause of death from cancer in women.
  • 70% of cervical cancers occur in developing countries.[5] In low income countries it is the most common cause of cancer death.[11] In developed countries, the widespread use of cervical screening programs has dramatically reduced rates of cervical cancer.
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    Do you think you need to focus on one specific type of cancer? I see cervical and breast cancers in your research.
kimah6

This is Probably a Good Time to Say That I Don't Believe Robots Will Eat All ... - 4 views

  • This is Probably a Good Time to Say That I Don’t Believe Robots Will Eat All the Jobs …
    • kimah6
       
      Benefits of robotics technology. Author in support of technology advancement.
  • First: Focus on increasing access to education and skill development, which itself will increasingly be delivered via technology. Second: Let markets work ( this means voluntary contracts and free trade) so that capital and labor can rapidly reallocate to create new fields and jobs. Third: Create and sustain a vigorous social safety net so that people are not stranded and unable to provide for their families. The loop closes as rapid technological productivity improvement and resulting economic growth make it easy to pay for the safety net.
  • There is a consequence to a growing robot workforce. Everything gets really cheap.
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  • Therefore, with rare exceptions, there won’t be states where robots eat jobs and products get more expensive. They almost always get cheaper.
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    One of the most interesting topics in modern times is the "robots eat all the jobs" thesis. It boils down to this: Computers can increasingly substitute for human labor, thus displacing jobs and creating unemployment. Your job, and every job, goes to a machine.
wstrahan

Streaming revenues turn the tide against digital pirates - FT.com - 0 views

  • Spotify, the subscription streaming service, has more than 6m subscribers. In video, Netflix, boosted by original productions such as House of Cards , has more than 36m subscribers. Amazon, Google and now Apple, with iTunes Radio, are bringing streaming to a much wider audience
  • This is – at last – translating into meaningful income. The Recording Industry Association of America calculates that revenues from services including Spotify, Pandora and YouTube went from 3 per cent of industry revenues in 2007 to 15 per cent, or more than $1bn, in 2012.
  • Apple’s strategy has pleased some music companies because its streaming service also encourages downloads. But many content owners still believe that streaming cannibalises download and DVD revenues
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  • What is lost from many calculations is the fact that the urge to own may be weaker in the age of streaming, but so is the urge to steal
  • Traffic to peer-to-peer file-sharing and torrent sites is declining where legal alternatives are offered
  • . Netflix’s Ted Sarandos said in May: “When we launch in a territory, the BitTorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows.”
  • In an analysis of the Dutch market, Will Page, an economist working for Spotify, found that releases by Rihanna and Taylor Swift that were held off Spotify sold just one legal copy for each BitTorrent download, while hits from One Direction and Robbie Williams that were instantly available for streaming sold four copies. “The legitimate market is beginning to outshine the illegitimate market,” says Cary Sherman, the RIAA’s chairman.
  • High rates of piracy for hits such as Game of Thrones in markets such as Australia show that consumers still look to illegal sources if content is not available legally in all parts of the world the minute that US consumers get it.
  • No one is ready to declare victory against the pirates, but the tide is starting to turn against them. The Napster generation is growing up – and behind it is an iTunes, Netflix or Spotify generation that has higher expectations of online content, but is more willing to pay.
peppermara

Artistic Dreaming - Women, Art and Empowerment in La Perouse | Human Rights in Australi... - 0 views

  • Ngala Nanga Mai
  • Since its inception, it has been an accessible and popular program within the community, bringing together mostly young women from lower-socio economic backgrounds that face issues of social isolation and disadvantage, which have previously restricted them from using these essential services.
  • Often, guest artists will attend to lead workshops that expose the women to different artistic techniques and cultural experiences.
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  • The project is about women and children and their access to health, education, art and social interaction. Art is central: it is about the process for the individual as an integrated being
  • be removed from their circumstances by immersing in the present and learn about themselves through the process of education and expression.
  • For the women, these meeting times exist in a space that provides a momentary respite from the role of mothering, where they can focus on the project before them,
  • We discuss how art gives shape to identity, pain and discovery as it taps into the unconscious. It connects the body, mind and spirit, allowing the opportunity to create and then step back and reflect. It is this holistic process that promotes the greatest right: human dignity.
  • Overall well-being has increased, contributed to by a greater sense of purpose, social connectedness, self-confidence and belonging.
  • In the past four years, Ngala Nanga Mai has grown into a strong, unified group that continues to prosper.
  • Art will forever remain one of the most effective mediums of expression. As blank canvases are filled with colours that depict stories, identities and lives, art will continue to inspire and empower change, growth and reflection. Initiatives such as Ngala Nanga Mai reveal the potential of art as a tool for promoting human development, building community and fostering well-being. Whilst law, policy and large-scale government intervention lack the capacity to ensure holistic change on an institutional level, it is vital that more creative ventures emerge that foster artistic expression, human rights and social empowerment. With motivation they are not only possible but sustainable.
perezmv

Clear Channel built iHeartRadio into massive streaming radio service - 0 views

  • Pandora continues to grow with 250 million registered users
  • There are one billion FM radios in the US and 160 million smartphones and 160 million PCs, so it’s still a subset of the FM marketplace.
  • Pittman doesn’t believe streaming hours will overtake traditional radio in his lifetime.
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  • “Music collections always replace each other and radio always tends to be yet another choice,” he says. “Satellite didn’t kill FM. AM didn’t kill FM. (Streaming music) one more choice and one more device you can listen to the radio on.”
  • digital is an important growth area for the business, even if the $17 billion or so that advertisers spend on radio each year is slow to move over to the Web.
  • In 2012, Clear Channel made strange bedfellows when it joined forces with Pandora to lobby Congress to lower the rates their services were required to pay artists to stream their music online. The companies eventually backed down from that effort in order to focus on a different political tact.
  • Online, people “tend to have a favorite and then they bounce around a couple different services,”
marikejp

The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace - Businessweek - 0 views

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    "Jackson still hustles for attention on the lower rungs of fame-he currently stars in season five of Celebrity Rehab, in which he battles his addiction to growth hormones for cable television viewers."
perezmv

Pandora - Investor Relations - News Release - 0 views

  • Both have established impressive track records leading Pandora’s strong team of technologists.
  • “I’m excited to promote two top technology leaders to these important positions.
  • Mr. Conrad has led Pandora’s engineering and product organization from the product’s inception and has guided the team as they delivered increasingly sophisticated playlist techniques, mobile, consumer electronics and in-car listening technology, as well as sophisticated advertising solutions
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  • “Our team of engineers has developed some of the most innovative music technology in the world and changed the way we all consume music,” said Chris Martin, Pandora’s new Chief Technology Officer. “Tom and I have built an incredibly strong team, and I am energized by the opportunity to help Pandora drive forward the future of radio.”
  • “Pandora created the most effective way for music and technology to enhance the lives of music fans and artists alike,” said Mr. Conrad. “As a company, Pandora has always been driven by that intersection between creativity and technology. I am proud to have been a part of this effort, working with an incredibly talented and creative group of technologists. Everything I wanted to know about following one’s passion and running a business I learned at Pandora.”
  • “As Pandora continues to grow, we need to ensure our technology resources are optimized to deliver the best experience possible for listeners, partners and advertisers.”
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