Pandora Review

Is Pandora truly worth listening to? Well, I decided to find out for myself. First of all, Pandora is a website that offers free internet radio that is customizable by the user. By simply putting in a song or a band title, Pandora will search through its archives and play songs that have similar musical qualities to either the song or the band that was selected. Pandora is absolutely free to use, although a premium version is available. The free version of Pandora offers approximately 40 free hours of listening per month and from time to time, a commercial will play. The premium version of Pandora features unlimited listening as well as commercial free listening.

I set up an account for myself to see if Pandora was really as good as it was hyped up to be. I initially created two stations, a contemporary rock station with music from artists such as Rise Against and Sum 41 and a classic rock station featuring music by artists such as Tom Petty, Journey, Kansas, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. At first listen, Pandora didn't seem that impressive. It didn't play the initial song that I requested and the first few songs weren't really that great. However, as I began to give songs the thumbs up or the thumbs down, Pandora started to "learn" from my music choices. Songs that I recognized began to play and even though I had never known the band or the name of the song, I was easily able to sing along and take note of who the music was by.

Overall, I was very impressed with the power of Pandora. Long term, I think it might end up having a substantial effect on other types of mediums such as the ipod, as well as standard fm radio. As far as the ipod goes, I believe that Pandora can have either one of two effects. The first possibility is that Pandora listeners find music that they like on Pandora and then purchase it on itunes and play it on their ipods whenever they like. In this scenario, Pandora internet radio would have a positive effect on the sales and use of the ipod. In the second scenario, the ipod users would replace listening to their ipod with listening to Pandora. In this case, the ipod would lose users and the effect would be negative.

As far as FM radio goes, I predict that FM is going to lose a lot of ground due to Pandora. FM radio generally plays one type of genre per station and there is no changing this. Pandora, unlike standard FM radio, adapts to the user's tastes and music preferences and permits the user to skip songs, ban artists, and ban different songs from being played. In this respect, I believe that Pandora will slowly outgrow FM radio because of the fact that it is a lot more customizable than regular radio. Perhaps one of the most contributing factors that will help Pandora outgrow FM is the fact that Pandora is available on the iphone which can be carried everywhere rather than only in the car or in a stereo system such as a standard radio.

The process of song selection of Pandora is a truly revolutionary process because it doesn't play the song that users specifically request and it doesn't even play the selected band in most cases. However, it still manages to be hugely successful because it plays the sound that people like and helps people discover different songs and artists that they never would have otherwise been introduced to. In my own experience with Pandora, this process has been excessively beneficial and not only am I identifying songs that I never knew the titles to, I am also discovering new bands and songs that I've never heard. This method is absolutely fantastic and although it breaks the rules, as mentioned in the "Times" article, it is still hugely successful.