Music is a complex science. Like a set of DNA, music is composed of its own genes. Components of music such as rhythm, tonality, instrumentation and vocal style are essentially the traits that create a song or artist's effect on our ears. One type of music may be appealing to one person but revolting to another.
Pandora, one of the latest free online radio stations - available online at Pandora.com - seeks to make sense of this enigma. Aligned with the Music Genome Project, the Web site identifies the various "genes" of a song and provides its online listeners with songs composed of similar structure. Even though the process sounds complicated, Pandora stands by a simple mission: helping its listeners discover new music.
When logging into Pandora, a listener is required to give an artist or song name. Based on the user's submission, the Web site will create a "station" based solely on the type of music Pandora thinks the listener will enjoy. Each song provided by the station is analyzed based on 400 attributes, or genes, so if a listener types in an "up tempo" artist or song, Pandora will continue to create songs or artists of that nature.
The process, however, is not entirely out of the hands of the listener. A listener is able to give a song a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" and even find out why Pandora played the song it did. With over 500,000 songs and 30,000 artists in its massive database, the listener's options are far from limited. Pandora learns from the taste of its listener, creating perhaps the best mode for discovering music on the Web.
The Music Genome Project began seven years ago with the goal of creating a web-based service to provide music suggestions for its subscribers and listeners. But two weeks after the company's first investment, it lost everything in the dot-com collapse. Over the next four years, Pandora's employees worked without salaries, fighting eviction notices, lawsuits and credit card debt while trying to achieve licensing deals and investments. By 2005, Pandora received its first major contribution and licensing deal, allowing the Web site to go public.
To this day, the company is made up of only 100 employees, half of them musicians. The major objective has always been to expand a listener's musical horizons. Pandora has worked to fight off online restrictions by not entering into deals with record labels or other major online companies such as AOL, Yahoo or Google. Additionally, the company has never used advertising; the message of its project has only been spread by word of mouth. This strategy has been successful; last week Pandora gained its four millionth subscriber. Unlike most radio stations, Pandora is totally committed to its listeners, focusing on innovation rather than competition.
Pandora continues to add features to its Web site based on the suggestions of its subscribers and listeners. Recently the Web site added a "backstage" feature that allows the listener to find artist data and upcoming tour dates for selected artists. In the future, the company hopes to make the Web site more interactive, giving its listeners the chance to connect with people that have similar musical tastes. According to Pandora founder Tim Westergren, simplicity is necessary for the future of the company in order for its users to be engaged in the Web site as well as in the music.
There are a few flaws in Pandora's service. When a user submits an artist, it assumes its listener likes all of this artist's material. As a result, the radio may provide songs by an artist from an era or album the listener may not have liked. Users should provide song selections rather than artists to avoid this problem. Also, the details of certain songs are sometimes inaccessible for a listener and the result can be unappealing. But the option to approve or disapprove is available, and listeners can strive to be responsive.
