Fast Company has included three music industry companies in its list of World’s Most Innovative Companies, to be published in its March issue.
They include media measurement firm BigChampagne, customized Internet radio service Pandora, and digital music server Sonos.
Other companies on the list include Apple, Converse, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, ESPN, Groupon, and Facebook.
Pandora late last week filed its intention to issue an IPO at a valuation of $100 million, becoming the first digital music service to go public in years. While it’s gotten plenty of traction among users and partners-such as car manufacturers-profitability remains elusive in the face of high licensing costs.
BigChampagne is the music rating service that unveiled with no little fanfare its Ultimate Chart, meant to track more of the social and streaming activity to rank today’s artists, in addition to sales.
Sonos is the surprising entry here. Its multi-room wireless music streaming system is considered the best all-in-one product for digital music fans, but competes with much larger mainstream companies who offer elements of the same thing, as in-home audio devices increasingly include Internet access.