Pandora Critique

Pandora is the next big thing on the music scene. Forget shuffling through radio stations to find songs you haven't heard hundreds of times in the last two days. Gone are the days that you have to be bored with the music on your iPod. And looking for new artists? Pandora is the music site for you. Type in a favorite song or artist, and Pandora presents a whole slew of like songs that you will possibly like. A complex process of finding songs or artists similar to the ones you choose is used. Not only do the people at Pandora scientifically choose these songs (and according to Rob Walker's piece in the NY Times, they take apart songs in ways we've never even heard of), but users' choices as a whole are taken into consideration; if one user likes both Jack Johnson and Dispatch, then Dispatch may be presented to a user who chooses Jack Johnson as their starting artist. What happens if you don't like the song selected? Simply click the "dislike" button, and Pandora searches for a new song to please you.

This is a great step up from the FM radio we all know and love (or hate?) today. Personally, my musical tastes are not played on the radio, and why should I have to subject myself to the repetitiveness of it all? Pandora is a great solution. It's also a great method for finding new artists; half the artists I now consider my favorites were discovered using Pandora. Now, some people may argue, "Great! I can listen to my favorite music while I'm sitting in front of my computer. Now, how about something I'll actually use? I only really listen to music in my car." Pandora works with the iPhone to solve this problem. The Pandora app for the iPhone is free (an effective means of both selling the iPhone and increasing the popularity of Pandora), and by hooking the phone up to your car, new music is right at your fingertips for those long drives. Pandora greatly extends your musical library; you can listen to new music you'll most likely enjoy for free! It also has an option to bookmark the song, check for information on the song or artist, and see why the song was chosen for you.

As a long time user of Pandora, I am disappointed in the recent addition of commercials. However, the commercials are a far cry from the radio's commercials; Pandora's last about thirty seconds between every five songs, while the radio's commercials last a few minutes between only a few songs. Though Pandora lacks the community feel of the radio, In a broad sense, we can connect with others who influence the music that is chosen for us while still feeling we have our own, personal radio station. Overall, Pandora deserves one of its own signature thumbs up.