36. Pandora Faces Rivals

             http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/business/songza-and-spotify-challenge-pandora-for-ears-and-ads.html?_r=0
   

              Ben Sisario, the author of the article "Pandora Faces Rivals for Ears and Ads," is really talking about how the music streaming monopoly Pandora Media was now facing rivals in the same sector as new digital music services are becoming available worldwide such as the new playlist app Songza and the music service Spotify. Since the launch of Songza, it has been downloaded millions of times and reached the top in the Apple App Store. Although Pandora has been able to keep a high position and dominance in the digital music service, it is clear that other free services are threatening to stop the pattern. The problem Pandora faces is not solely by the fact that there will be less number of users but that the ad competition will also grow. The stocks for Pandora have fallen and although the CEO of the company believes that other services will not be a problem for their growth, Songza's incredible growth has made such an assumption questionable.
             The author has used several rhetorical devices in his writing. The author's purpose is informative and the mode of discourse is exposition. The author's tone is skeptical yet critical but sometimes is neutral. The author chooses to use words that exaggerate the critical competition problems Pandora is facing and he quotes the CEO creating a sense of irony as the founder believes that Pandora will not be affected by Songza. The author also uses a compare and contrast structure. While Pandora is more of a user preference service, Songza is more of a complete, preloaded playlist service. The author also uses the cause and effect: new digital music services are available free and the effect is that the dominance of Pandora is falling because competition grows and its stocks fall and ad provision too.