What is Pandora Radio Service?

Music has come a long way since the days of record players. We can now stream and download any song we want with just a click. There are websites that will let us sample music from around the world without having to wait for a local radio station to play them. One such service is Pandora Radio. Pandora lets us discover new music that we would never otherwise find. You just type in your favorite artist or song, and it will give you a list of other songs that might fit your taste.

Despite the similarities, Pandora Radio works differently than other music discovery services. The service has no genre list, user connections, or ratings. Instead, it analyzes the structure of music to give you a radio station filled with songs with similar music traits. These traits come from a music genome of 400 elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition, and lyrics.
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How to Use Pandora

As stated earlier, the Pandora media player is your interface to the Pandora Internet Radio System. You do not need an account to use it either, just a broadband internet connection, though your Pandora login gives you access to every feature. Once you get past the Pandora sign in screen, the service gives you a text box. This is where you create your radio station. You type in your favorite artist, song, genre, or album, and then select the format you want from the displayed options. You can even select one of the many previously created stations as well. That station will play after a few more setup prompts that let you modify how you want the music. Once there, you can create other stations, add songs to your Favorites list, buy music from Amazon or iTunes, share your station with friends, and embed your station into your blog.

The service also uses our feedback. Every time you click thumbs-up or thumbs-down, the system updates your playlist accordingly. If you thumbs-up a song, you will get more songs like it. If you thumbs-down, it will drop the song and anything similar. The process works for both the stations you made for yourselves and those you collected from your friends. In the end, you get a progressively personalized radio station that only plays the music you want.

Pandora Uses Musical Traits to Deliver Music

The heart of the Pandora Radio Service is the underlying Pandora Music Genome Project database. It creates the playlist we hear by first choosing a random song from our selected arts and then defining its characteristics to find the next song. These characteristics include the arrangement, beat, form, harmony, lyrics, melody, orchestration, rhythm, syncopation, tempo, vamping, and the song’s voice. You can then read these characteristics in the bottom portion of the player, or by clicking the “Why did you play this song?” option from the album art right-click menu. The service currently works with more modern music such as rock, pop, and hip-hop, but they plan on adding additional genres in the future.

Who can listen to Pandora?

To take advantage of the Pandora music system, you either need to use their website or an app. There are apps for every platform, and your personal preference will dictate which one you should use. The only requirements for listening to Pandora is that you live in either the United States, Australia, or New Zealand, and you have a broadband connection. Otherwise, you are free to consume the service wherever you want.

Most users listen to Pandora on their desktop computer or laptop through the Pandora website. The Website interface offers full access to one’s user profile as well as station creation and modification tools. Besides the website, you can use Pandora app on your mobile device. The app is available on all major mobile operating systems including Android, iOS, and BlackBerry. Beyond mobile devices, you can find Pandora preloaded on several Internet-enabled televisions, streaming devices, and Blu-ray players.

Spotify VS. Pandora

Pandora Internet Radio is not the only music streaming service out there. Services such as Spotify also let you discover and stream music on demand. However, these services operate on different philosophies. Spotify lets users choose the songs they want and when they want to hear them. In contrast, Pandora users only create radio stations based on their preferred music style. Thus, Pandora lets its users discover new music while Spotify lets them share their music. They serve different purposes, and this is the main difference between the two services.

Pandora Fun Facts

With all that Pandora offers, it still has its faults and secrets.Some will even surprise you given how the service is today. Many of these are actual mistakes and service additions from the company itself. Others developed from the myths surrounding the service. In either case, these ten fun facts make for great conversation starters. Here are some of the things you can ponder while listening to your Pandora radio station.

  • Pandora offers more than just music. It also streams podcasts, comedies, and other non-musical content.
  • Pandora is the Official SXSW Streaming Partner. You can listen to events and panels from the popular film and music festival live through the service.
  • The Service revealed its Browse mobile feature in 2016.
  • Pandora is not global. You can only share your station and content with friends in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
  • Pandora originally went by the name Savage Beast.
  • Pandora was originally a pay-to-use service. The service has since switched to a free service with advertising.
  • Over 50 billion users clicked Thumbs up since the service came online.
  • Pandora had a podcast. The Pandora Podcast ran from 2006 to 2009.
  • Pandora has no true competition. While there are other internet radio services, they do not affect Pandora’s growth or features.
  • Pandora had no marketing budget in its first five years. The service relied on users spreading the word themselves.

Disk Drill Helps Protect your Pandora Profile

Pandora develops your user experience from hundreds of tags and classification through its Music Genome Project. It then saves the data and your preferences to your user account so you can access them from any device. However, it stores your Pandora login credentials locally on your computer. Thus, you will need a data recovery solution to access your music if something goes wrong. Fortunately, there is Disk Drill. Disk Drill will search your hard drive to locate and restore any file Pandora downloads on to your system, ensuring that you can sit back and enjoy the music.

This website is independent of Pandora Media, Inc., and is not authorized by, endorsed by, sponsored by, affiliated with, or otherwise approved by Pandora Media, Inc. Pandora and the Music Genome Project are registered trademarks of Pandora Media, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

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