Also: Yahoo's CFO | NBC's new TV sites | Orange's consumer survey | GMTV goes Roo | Excite's UK bloggers | Zopa hits 150,000 members
Music recommendation site Pandora had been due to launch a local UK version this week, but that's all gone up in smoke - along with all their other plans for international users.
It all comes down to rights, of course, with Pandora having to stick to striking US deals only for now. Pandora "pulled the plug" on broadcasters outside the US on 3 May - using geo-IP detection to work out who to stream to, or not. Founder Tim Westergren said plans for the UK version are just postponed while those global royalty issues are ironed out, but apparently the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in London has just completed some form of global agreement that could help collect and distribute international royalities. comScore put the US web radio audience at 34.5m and Europe at 49.5m. (New York Times)
Yahoo's new chief financial officer
Blake Jorgensen has been appointed chief financial officer of Yahoo, replacing Susan Decker who is being shunted off to head up the advertising and publishing group. This is all part of a major and seemingly long-winded restructure at Yahoo as chief executive Terry Semel responds to shareholder concerns about a lack of strategic agility and slowing revenue growth. (Wall Street Journal)
NBC expands TV show websites
Office fans in the US will be able to create their own characters and branches of Dunder-Mifflin (that's the US interpretation of Wernham Hogg) through Office 360, NBC's website for the show. NBC has said the branches could be woven into the script at a later point and this is all part of an expanding web offering from the broadcaster. A raft of new shows will have spin-off sites including the Bionic Woman and Lipstick Jungle, and there will be virtual tours of every set. (Reuters)
Events trigger mobile web use, says Orange
Orange has published the first of something called a "digital media index" which, it says, examines consumer trends across its fixed-line and mobile broadband services and messaging. The key findings from this year's report found that Orange UK customers are downloading around 250,000 games for mobiles each month and that the popularity of texting continues to grow - 870m messages were sent in the first three months of 2007 by Orange customers alone. Major events such as Live World Cup Cricket and the Oscars were very popular for live TV and video clips respectively. (Release)
GMTV gets Roo-powered video
Online video company Roo has signed another UK client in the form of GMTV. The GMTV offering on gm.tv will combine behind-the-scenes clips from GMTV and show highlights with various Roo content across five channels, all branded GMTV. The site will offer pre-roll adverts on all channels. The GMTV site has around 750,000 users each month. Roo, who also provide web TV players for the Sun, the Mirror, VNU and Times Online, is now 10% owned by News Corp. (Press Gazette)
Excite's UK blog additions
Excite has added content from a few British bloggers to a new page called "BlogFire" on the portal. The six blogs cover gadgets, music, film, football and reality TV - although the sixth blog, WebTwitcher, curiously vanished at some point during this afternoon. Excite is designed as a personalised homepage, so the idea is that these feeds offer a sample of decent blog content to add to your "mix".
Zopa: users hit 150,000
Zopa, the online lending aggregator, has reached 150,000 members. The site was set up by the Egg people and backed by Benchmark, who also put money into eBay, and Bessemer, who invested in Skype. It's basically matchmaking for money (or "social lending", of you prefer) and earned the site a Webby last month for best banking site. Zopa has just recruited eBay's former UK product director Tanya Cordrey as its own UK product director.
