Pandora: In the middle of music
Pandora is an Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. The listeners start by entering a song or artist that they would like to hear and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. When a song comes on that you like or dislike you press the thumbs up or down to tell Pandora for future reference. Pandora is available on the Internet and also on all Smartphones including Blackberry's, iPhone's and Droids through an application. Pandora is an ad-supported website.
Unlike many ad-supported music websites, Pandora cannot play music on-demand which is why the records labels support them. According to Russ Crupnick in the article above (a senior industry analyst for entertainment at the NPD Group) online radio drives in a 41 percent increase in paid downloads. We then ask why a free internet radio music source such as Pandora brings up the revenue of paid music? Because Pandora introduces people to new music due to not playing music on-demand. Like I said earlier Pandora picks songs or artists that are like the one you initially picked. So this can lead you to new artists which you omay or may not like and then want to buy so you can listen to it on-demand.
People such as Tim Westergren, the company’s co-founder and chief strategy officer are hoping to drive music sales in other ways too. Such as the idea of when you hear a new artist that you like, you can pick the thumbs up and then later down the road recieve notifications of when the artist will be in town. In the future they hope that the record labels will let Pandora turn to On-Demand.
I kinda hope that Pandora stays exactly the way it is. I personally fall asleep each night to it, it plays what I like, and it also introduces me to new songs and artists it thinks I may like (where most of the time I do). I rarely even notice the advertisements that come on between songs, because they are rare, and don't last very long. I just don't see the point for an On-Demand Pandora when we have iTunes already. Pandora plays songs I wouldn't normally play, and I don't have to make a play list of songs I want to hear, because when I do that I find myself playing the same artists, and neglecting other artists.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I think I have a love/hate relationship with Pandora. I use it on my Blackberry and I will type in a song, and it will come up, but then Pandora does not play the song I chose. I understand what they are doing with playing song or artists that are like the one's you choose, but I still want what I ask for! I do like that whenever I type in a certain artist, it will play songs by bands I may not know, or it will play a song I haven't heard in forever, and I'll get really excited and go download it because it brought back memories. Ugh, but one thing I hate about Pandora is if I am looking for a certain song by an artist, you can only skip 6 times, and I go through that fast, which makes me turn it off. Maybe I am just picky. I do, though, understand Erin's comment about how it doesn't make sense for Pandora to be on-demand when we have iTunes. Pandora is so different than iTunes that we don't need 2 of the same programs, doing the same things. Pandora is unique that it is free internet radio supported with advertisements.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the two ladies above me in saying that an On-Demand version of Pandora would be silly and unnecessary. Sure, iTunes cost money, but I almost feel bad for these alternative 'Long Tail' artists that are losing money due to file sharing clients and YouTube. If there was a free On-Demand music player, revenue in the music business is dead as we know it.
ReplyDeleteI think Pandora is great in how it is exposing new and old artists to listeners that otherwise would never listen to them, and that's how it should stay.
I definitely love Pandora and I use the site a lot. However, I, like many other people, cannot stand the fact that Pandora does not play the song you type in right away. I sit around my computer waiting for it to play but it never comes up. I also do not like the fact that it only allows you to skip a certain amount of songs. Some songs that they relate to the song I typed in, I actually like, but most of them I don't. Strangely enough, this doesn't stop me from using Pandora on a regular basis, which I find pretty weird and I'm sure others do as well.
ReplyDeleteI love Pandora just the way it is. Sometimes the advertisements get irritating, but I've come to accept that it's part of the business of online radio/music. I agree with Heather and others that you can only skip so many songs. Sometimes the songs just really aren't my taste, even if the channel is the one I prefer to be on.
ReplyDeleteI have been turned on to many new artists through pandora. Last year at my job, a reggae band performed, and when I typed them in as a channel on pandora, I was exposed to a ton of music I normally wouldn't seek out myself, just another example of the Long Tail at work.
Literally everyday at work I listen to Pandora on my Blackberry. I have at least 20 different stations all with different genres. I spend about 5 hours on it and to be honest the ads do not effect me at all. At work I'm always moving in the warehouse and I'm never in the same spot, so I only here the radio at certain points in the day. To me, listening to Pandora is just like listening to the radio except I can choose songs that normally aren't on the radio. I don't know what I would do with out it.
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