Your very own music station…
This site has changed how I listen to music, simple as. Its got to be the best implementation of any ‘Web 2′ type of site I’ve seen, more people should take a leaf out of the book those guys were reading when they created that service. Pandora lets you create a personalised radio station based on bands and songs you like, it then plays songs that are deemed to be similar to that music. In my opinion the best bit is that to use the service all you have to do is type in a artist / song name into the funky flash based player- no need to sign up.
That’s important, so many people don’t bother using really good sites simply because they don’t want the hassle of signing up. With Pandora you can use the service for a limited time and then decide if you want to sign up, I defy anyone who listens to music on their PC and has broadband not to sign up after a few minutes of using Pandora.
The really cool part of Pandora is highlighted in this video interview by Robert Scoble with Pandora’s CTO Tom Conrad, its really worth a watch. Pandora (if you live in the US) will work on your mobile phone, advertisement free, for $3 /month. Thats something I’d love to try, the ability to listen to any music on the move without having to actually have it with you is really cool.
Aside from DMCA restrictions (thats a whole other post) potentially ruining this I think its going to be the way that we’ll access music, I hope so anyway.
The interesting part of all this is, is this the end of the iPod? If my phone could access Pandora there is no way I’d buy a MP3 player that cant.