It is the essence of the music genome, the ability to have the internet free-think for you in a way that nourishes your ears with a type of radio that doesn’t simply play music, it plays you. That is Pandora.
Specifically talking about probably the hottest rage out there in internet radio, the web site Pandora.com, it’s a site that went from troubled startup to cyberspace giant rivaling that of any satellite radio station (sorry, Sirius XM). Back when Pandora first came out, music was in a state of transition. Artists were jumping from one foot to the other, not knowing what was going to happen with the industry. Dealing piracy and the whole Napster deal through the whole industry for a loop, not to mention the somewhat odd switch from CD to MP3 and of course AM/FM to Sirius XM radio. Here came this little web site with an idea: hey, let’s play music based on what any individual likes–sort of a way to ‘customize’ your station. If you liked a certain kind of band, Pandora would play all kinds of singles from that band plus any other bands of a similar sound.
Pretty interesting idea. It’s amazing how one person can brainstorm and come up with something….
According to the latest news, the ‘interesting idea’ paid off with a record 75 million registered users on the site. Not too shabby.
You can bet there are numerous sites that follow the same mantra, and it definitely put internet radio on the map (case in point, Last.fm, another site dedicated to customizable internet radio service). Probably the only real competitor to satellite radio is internet radio like Pandora (although regular AM/FM being completely ‘free’ to listen to is still a normal airwave standard). Hats off to the visionary man behind the Pandora, CEO Tim Westergren–you’ve done well. It took a lot of faith, but in this day and age, yes, that’s what it takes: faith.
