Pandora.Com: Free Music on Your Desktop

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you enjoy music you already know, and to help you discover new music you'll love.

It's powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians." - Pandora FAQ

Pandora has been around for a few years now, constantly improving and growing in popularity. It's similar to the radio systems of sites like Rhapsody and Yahoo music, but with several improvements. Firstly, it's free. There is a VERY low cost membership available, but it doesn't offer many additional services. Secondly, it runs smoothly with every OS and browser I could find to test it on. That includes Linux and Firefox, the two most common systems web producers like to ignore. Thirdly, it is just smarter than the other stations. It will introduce you to music you would never have heard of, and much of it will be fast favorites. It even has a smoother design, to boot. Fourth, they now have a wonderfully non-intrusive desktop application that gives you access to all the Pandora features without junking up your screen. Lastly, they include some of the social networking features we all know and love. For an example, swing by my profile at http://www.pandora.com/people/krundle If you join up, leave me a comment, so my friends and I can discover new music by visiting your profile, too.

Cost

Pandora is free if you access it via the web or their desktop application. For $36 per year, you can also access it with select Sprint cellphones, or a streaming music player from Sonos or Logitech. The free membership has visual advertising on the applications and web pages, but the paid membership has none. Neither membership option has any audio advertising.

Compatibility

Pandora streams at 128kpbs, so you need a broadband connection of at least 150kpbs to run it. DSL or Cable will due. Dial up will not. If you have a satellite connection, you'll have to check with your provider.

Pandora is supported on IE and Firefox for Windows 2000, XP, or Vista. It is also supported on Safari and Firefox for Mac OS X 10.3 or later. They don't mention Linux in their FAQ, but I've asked several friends using Linux to try it and it has worked perfectly for each of them. It's entirely Flash based, so all you really need is an up to date Flash plug-in.

Regardless of your OS, you need a 1Ghz processor and at least 256M of RAM, a sound card, and an audio output device (such as speakers or headphones).

You need an active email address.

You also need to live in the United States. They are working on gaining licensing in other countries, but it's much more costly outside the United States and they haven't worked out an acceptable deal with anyone else yet.

Station Intelligence

The base intelligence of Pandora is the detail at which songs are analyzed and the incredible variety available, but the system has a smart build, too. Each station is started with a Seed. A Seed is a song or artist you like. The station then plays songs that have something in common with the Seed. For each song that plays, you have many options.

You can give it a Thumbs Up. Pandora will keep it in the rotation and play more songs like it.

You can give it a Thumbs Down. Pandora will skip the song (if you have skips left on that station), drop it from the rotation, and play songs less like it.

You can see why Pandora thought that song should belong on that station.

You can tell Pandora you're tired of a song, and it won't be played on any station for 30 days.

You can move a song to another station. It will receive a Thumbs Down on the current station, but a Thumbs Up on the new one.

You can start a whole new station using the current song as a Seed.

You can bring up an information page about the song or artist.

Desktop Application

This is a real beauty. There are other desktop options, but Pandora has really taken it to the next step. It's completely non-intrusive, showing up as a tiny menu bar icon. Clicking on it brings up the exact same screen you see when you run Pandora on your browser. It has all the same options and functions from your desktop, you just don't have an extra window to deal with. It actually takes a noticeable chunk of your CPU's attention if you're using a MAC, but the application is still in Beta and that is a priority issue to Pandora. Even though it's in Beta, I haven't come across any other issues or reports of issues with it. The desktop application can be downloaded at http://www.pandora.com/desktop

Social Networking

Each user has a profile page. It features some basic information about the user, and a lot of information about their musical preferences. It shows a list of their stations, including what they're listening to now (or last did, if they're offline). You can listen to their stations, too, if you see something that looks interesting. The profile page also has lists of songs and artists the user has bookmarked. It has a list of friends whose profiles they've bookmarked. It also has a comments section with the option of posting public or private comments. This can function as a simple messaging system, as well as a public comment area like most social networking sites offer. As I mentioned above, my profile is at http://www.pandora.com/people/krundle and I'd be happy to be your first friend and help you learn to navigate the site, if you like.

Pandora also keeps a blog. It has regular posts about company projects as well as the music-related projects of the company owners. It is located at http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/