Pandora’s internet radio has always been one of those sites that was really cool in concept, but too inconvenient to ever go mainstream. The service was long tied to computers only, and while it eventually expanded to special internet radios and some mobile phones, it still has yet to become a household name. But with the launch of Pandora’s new iPhone app last Friday, it looks like the service is about to hit critical mass. It’s a free, mobile, digital radio station that only plays music you like and lets you skip the stuff you don’t. And it rocks.
The personalized music service employs a small army of 50 musicians to create a “Music Genome” that describes each song according to 600 attributes. Listeners input a few of their favorite artists, and the site analyzes the Genome to serve up an endless stream of recommended music.
We introduced the app last Friday, when we called it our “flat out favorite application so far”, and since then it hasn’t failed to impress. Streamed music plays flawlessly over Edge and 3G networks – during a 40 mile drive I didn’t once run into any kind of skipping or static. Even better, the app currently has no advertisements playing, though we can probably expect that to change.
Unsurprisingly, Pandora’s usage stats are overwhelmingly positive. Pandora is currently the fourth most popular free app on iTunes (behind Apple’s Remote, AIM, and WeatherBug), and has reportedly been seeing a new listener every 2 seconds. Usage over the weekend hit an all-time high for the service, with 3.3 million tracks streamed to iPhone listeners alone. Perhaps more impressive is the retention rate of listeners, who are averaging over an hour of listening per day.
If there’s one thing that could kill the service, it’s ads. Pandora is going to need to monetize the app somehow – let’s hope it allows us to pay an upfront fee (say, $10) to avoid the annoying interruptions that have made listening to traditional radio a painful experience.
Anyone know of stats for last.fm’s app, it launched slightly late, but I imagine may have an equal if not better growth curve than pandora. Anyone know someone or work at last.fm and would be willing to give some insight into their growth rates thus far?
that looks great
great job pandora. finally, a business model that may pan out.
While I’m a fan of Pandora on the iPhone, I’m concerned about the constant use of the 3G/EDGE receiver to be a huge battery drain. How long does your battery last while using Pandora?
changing the paradigm of radio. straight up sick. i would pay for this. went from santa cruz to sf and back (edge and 3g) and no drops; totally unreal.
this story is only going to get bigger, imo.
last.fm only seemed to work for me on wifi.
Last.fm’s app is better.
http://blog.las...-and-ipod-touch
http://www.pand....com/on-the-go/
They support many other AT&T and Sprint phones, not just the iPhone
I wouldn’t mind ads if it kept Pandora alive and thriving. It does such a great job of introducing me to new music and letting me be my own music director that I could easily live with ads. Though I would pay a fee for ad-free music if the price was right.
I want this app to have my babies.
I’m completely biased when it comes to services like this. I guess because if they do any better my job goes away. Still I gotta say internet radio (Pandora and Last.fm included) still have yet to figure out a way to create a personality to accompany the music. Sure you can listen to music without commercials, but you also listen to music without the DJ who makes listening to the radio more of an experience than listening to a playlist generated by a sweet algorithm.
Eric, I have to be honest: I’d gladly forego “personality” to avoid having to listen to the same 30 songs that Live105 in the Bay Area plays, over and over.
This isn’t just a threat to Clear Channel and CBS (one of whom should buy Pandora before they get any more momentum, and the price goes up), but also to the iTunes music store.
It is easier for me to flip to a Pandora station i like than to create custom playlists, organize, sort, edit, etc.
I listen to Pandora 10 hours a day at work, and when i get an iphone, live105 / Channel 104.9 will lose a listener when i’m driving anywhere.
I can’t stand “personality” either. There’s a big market for radio that just plays music.
i would stop using pandora if they started playing audio ads. when i am listening to music, i absolutely do not want to hear some product shoved down my throat. it ruins the entire experience.
Well a FREE app has to be paid for somehow!
Or, like Satellite radio, offer it for $10 a month?
An ad free version is offered for $36 a year !
Can anyone tell me how I could get this app because it is not part of my country’s app store, but I would really like to try it. Any idea please?
This is one of the top reasons I’m thinking about getting an iPhone. I’ve got the app on my iPod touch, but it’s use is a bit limited seeing as its constricted to Wi-Fi areas. It would be great to have while driving.
What sort of bandwidth does this chew up in an hour?
Pandora doesn’t work for me at all while driving. When I jump from 3G to Edge it pauses. If they could buffer it would be great, but as is its completely useless while driving.
I had high hopes because its very cool, but how much gain do I get when I can only use it on WiFi when I also happen to be in front of a computer that can run Pandora and not drain the extremely limited iPhone battery. I guess I could sit there all day tethered to my computer, but how geeky is that?
Loren Feldman here – 1938 Media. Pandora. What the f is with these Pandora jack offs. Just turn on the f-ing video Steve!
Mr. Apple TV. Mr. iMovie Mr. Year of Video. Mr all of that.
I will take care of Robert Scoble – just turn on the video.
i personally don’t enjoy hearing a dj talk while listening to music. especially when i am listening to music while working or falling asleep. someone talking would just distract me/wake me up.
yay for tim westergren – he deserves it!
only problem which you tend to forget about, streaming media works great only when you’re in areas of good 3G signal drop down to 1 or 2 bars, and you’ll go nuts; or when you swap carriers – even though you’re currently locked into AT&T; they do swap carriers to get better signal in different areas. Just remember to have some media saved locally for when this happens
What about profit sharing with appole? I’m pretty sure the app links directly into itunes to buy the song. Maybe even an option to pruchase from amazon and send a DL link to your email.
oh, and will Pandora work when when you’re outside the US? I tried to use XM on my blackberry remotely and it wouldn’t work, just as Hulu, Netflix and the lot don’t work either
Pandora it’s not available World Wide so it’s not such a great app.
Streaming media on the iPhone is the 500lb gorilla that will soon smash radio, including XM and Sirius. I’ve downloaded all the iPhone radio apps and have had an absolute blast playing radio from around the world in my car instead of listening to the paltry and pathetic offerings of the over the air services. As prices decrease and this technology improves watch out traditional broadcasters.
well I am sorry they have limited themselves (for legal reasons) to the us market…
for the rest of us there is the backing of the CBS owned last.fm
last.fm is frankly WONDERFUL because they let you have the data back…
and the iPhone app looks very nice indeed…
regards
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk
The sound quality of Pandora’s streams sucks – it sounds really compressed, even more so than sat radio. Both AOL radio and Last.fm sound much better.
just tested it out. freaking awesome!
according to last fm data released today they have about 25,000 active iPhone users
An upfront fee for the app (with continued no commercials) would be great! I just hope they can offer it as a one time fee and not a reoccurring monthly as that would kill it for me.
I have to agree, along with Evernote, this is one of the best apps out there. The best part is, it’s like music on demand. Seriously, take it to a party and ask your friends to give you the name of their favorite artist. Then plug in your iPhone and let Pandora rip. So awesome.
From a user’s point of view, this sounds excellent. But from the point of view of a network operator… not so much. This underscores the dangers in flat-rate data pricing. It’s hard to plan for capacity if people are running an audio stream for hours on end.
A bit more on this here: http://www.shai...erger.com/?p=98
And good info on the “backhaul bottleneck” — which is becoming the limiting factor for mobile data — here: http://tinyurl.com/2kwhgo
Pandora guys- if you’re listening… PLEASE don’t start with ads… I’d be happy to pay a one-time $10 fee for ad free streams. I hate to say it, but if I start hearing ads, I’m out.
I pay an annual fee for Pandora to run it on my Sonos system, without ads. It is worth it, and I assume that will also happen for the iPhone, no?
I emailed Pandora to give them my support. Within an hour they emailed me back and hinted to their plans for the app…
http://tinyurl.com/6ekpb6
This company is going places.
@Rick : the one-time annual fee removes ads from all devices and the web version of Pandora. So if you’re a subscriber you wont get ads anywhere you use Pandora.
@Dave : Thanks for the nice post!
Just subcribe $3 per month and Pandora promises not to put ads on the iPhone version and web client, $3 for the best music beats $0.99 per track on iTunes!
#10 Eric, that may be true for some but I believe MANY more people prefer to the let the music do the talking and that number will grow as more people experience DJ-free radio. I just don’t see the point of a DJ, I never have. More often than not they annoy me and interrupt the flow of music for some lame story or unfunny joke. This is especially true on rock stations where most are trying to be bad ass. My number one gripe with Sirius is the DJ staff on the alternative stations. Unless you can be a constant fountain of knowledge spewing interesting INFORMATION about the upcoming artist…just play music!
I’ve enjoyed Pandora for years. I’m glad to hear they may have found a niche that can carry them to truly long-term sustainability.
Pandora on the iPhone rocks…until you want to do something else on the phone. When you toggle to check your e-mail or check what time you have an appointment Pandora cuts off. You have to then relaunch the program and select the station you want. No multi-tasking for the Pandora application.
The Pandora iPhone app is incredible. Truly a game changer.
I’m on the old iPhone using EDGE and I can’t believe it still works!
Pandora is US-centric … so it’s certainly NO killer app …
It’s not Pandora’s choice to be US centric. It’s the licensing issues. Talk to the record companies. However, you can game it to make it look like you’re in the US. Do some research; people have cracked this nut.
anything usa only is for lo0sers
Pandora on the iphone is great, but i don’t think this is the huge push towards mainstream that you make it out to be. Pandora was well on its way to becoming mainstream before the iphone ever came out. I was constantly surprised in college by the number and variety of people who played pandora regularly; people who were certainly not early adopters or even regular internet users. Pandora on the iphone is great and will certainly expand their user base, and I agree the portability factor is revolutionary in a way, but I don’t think the iphone is the secret to mainstream proliferation of web services. The iphone itself is no where close to being mainstream.
Subscription price listed on website is $36/year — cheap for what you get.
I have this program installed in my iPhone. This is totally cool, believe me! You should have it. It’s a must-have.
I love how people would hate to listen to ads for any of these services. How do you expect it to survive financially?
Even satellite radio and cable television have ads. The great thing about Pandora or last.fm is the ability to customize the music to your tastes. Traditional radio cannot provide this dynamic feature. I’ll listen to an ad as long as I can hear The Who, Cure, and Wham.
Though no fault of their own, their service is still closed to most non-US visitors. It might be a killer – but not for me!
I listen to Pandora on the web 8+ hours a day. Living in Atlanta where there is not a decent radio station, it’s a must. Being able to have it in the car would be great, but I just can’t support any Apple product.
I LOVE Pandora, but you know what? i HATE advertisements. The day Pandora starts sticking ads in between my music is the day I stop using it.
Ads are the reason why I pay for Tivo, ads are the reason I don’t listen to commercial radio, ads, ads, ads. I don’t like ads!
Only available to the US, what a shame.
Hi there, just wanted to clarify that Pandora isn’t only tied to computers. It’s integrated into the Sonos digital music system, along with Rhapsody, Sirius, Internet radio, etc. No longer is listening to music a dedicated form of entertainment!
http://theocmd....l-music-system/