(Wow, sorry this is so long...)

Subject: Thanks & *Feature/Technical* Suggestions

Just wanted to add one more to the many thanks you've already received. I listen to Pandora more than I listen to my own music collection, which is huge and full of stuff I know I already like. This is a great accomplishment in and of itself.

Anyway, I can still think of lots of ways that Pandora can improve, or at least some cool features I know I'd like to see. These range from petty to useful, but are listed in no particular order:

- Advanced/detailed preferences. It may break the abstraction barrier a bit, but it would be cool if you could give users the ability to somehow tweak the desired 'genes' expressed in each of their stations to a degree greater than a simple per-song thumbs up/down. I know there would probably be TONS of checkboxes involved, but if my rap station somehow thinks I want to hear Britney Spears, it would be nice to selectively 'kill off' the genes that led to that inference. Survival of the fittest, eh?

- "Mood" stations. I notice people often make playlists from their music collections based on moods. This may be an extension of the above suggestion, but letting users pre-pick the genes for a station might allow them to better mold the station's "mood"; you might even allow the user to generate a subset of the available genes based on songs/artists they initially add to the station so they don't have to wade through all of the hundreds that the analysts can see. From this subset, they could specify which of the traits to "never" express, "preferably always" express, or "sometimes" express? It would be really cool to see this implemented.

- "More stations from this user." If I'm listening to a station from a user whose email address I don't know, it would be nice to see what other shared stations they have. This might also merit the added option of...

- Selectively designating one's own radio stations as "shareable/visible" or "not shareable/visible". Maybe I don't want anyone who knows my email address to know that I listen to Richard Cheese and 2 Live Crew? It would be nice to allow a user to choose what stations they are sharing with the world.

- Tooltips >> Scrolling. Sometimes the Song/Artist/Album names are longer than the allotted space.. it would be nice to have a better way to see the entire name than the hover-and-scroll method currently in place (which, for some reason, works only for long artist/album names and not long song titles). Tooltips come to mind, but there may be even better ways, I dunno.

- Forms for feature suggestions & bug reports? I know there a few ways to suggest music, but is there an easy way for users to suggest new features, aside from commenting on the blog? ;] It also looks like there's a very minor bug in the blog's comment preview, as my post starts above the PANDORA logo, apparently hiding the first line or two.. (only tried in Firefox).

- I swear I had more technical suggestions, but I can't remember anymore, so I'll shamelessly suggest some music: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Amun Ra, Kletka Red, Vinx, DaVinci's Notebook, DJ Assault, Group X, Philip Glass, einLab... I'll stop here before I double the size of this post.

Please let me know if you have any plans to implement any of the above-mentioned features!

Thanks and keep up the good work,
Usman

P.S. - Noe Venable is indeed awesome -- I added her to my favorite female artists station ("Bestrogen": http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh12576656381330972) a few weeks ago, thanks to Pandora.

Oops, I'm stupid:

"EMAIL CONTACT:
pandora-support@pandora.com Customer Support and Product Feedback Inquiries"
...

Looks like I should've emailed that instead...?

-Usman

I've blogged it before and I'll blog it again, I too am begging for access to the gene information that stations use, or at the VERY least the ability to cross reference songs within a station to emphasise what genes I am listening for. Thanks.

hi... just wanted to say "GREAT JOB" !!!! thanks a lot, i love the pandora project.

hey,now i feel that i couldn't live with out pandora in my life...that's truth and now some of my friend know pandora and started to enjoy it,some of them call it"something i used to search for,finally i get it,this pandora is the right thing."
all we know that compare with making the playlist in your pc played,listening on the pandora is much more..how to say,sorry for my english.it's cool and awesome,i mean this,seriously,and we should all thank those guys out there helping gethering,listening and analyzing the songs,thanx guys,thanx a lot.

hi. i just wanted to say that you don't have to listen to those who complain about this and that. your work is one of the most well done i ever seen. you don't deserve bastards saying bullshits because they are wanting to have control about every aspect and see the backbones of the system. keep all the work this way. greetings from argentina (don't tell anyone i am not on the US). cya.

Hi ~ new subscriber here and I love it! Can't tear myself away from adding music to "MY STATIONS!" This is so great!

I would like to see more international music, especially more east Asian artists like Ali Akbhar Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jagjit Singh, to name a few. There is a growing following of Indian music in the US ... I like the fusion stuff too; but the "Masters" are the best!

Thanks again!

Hey, love the service; it would be cool if it could do user tagging, though IE, I could label a song: accoustic, blues, female vocalist, modern. Create different "genes". It could work in tandem with the existing system.

I think that your service is extremely cool. I originally heard Leo Laporte talking about Pandora on his podcasts, and I was really blown away when I checked our your service and by the Music Genome Project as a whole. The user interface and recommendation engine work great. I'm starting to listen to Pandora every day!

It is good that you are working hard to get a better music player for each and every person that decides to use your site. But what about the peole that like random music, music from local artists. Are you ever going to have a spot for local artists? And please not just any artist that wants to have somthing on the net it would have to people that are actually good. I am not an artist but i know what i like and for me i look at new music objectivelly. This is just one suggestion to help filter out music that is crap from local artist. thank you for your time.

Thanks for all the comments, guys!

Cynthia: World music will come, don't worry!

cheers, Lucia

thanks you for all your hard work and efforts! i have so enjoyed pandora - i am a new mom and pretty much on the day i found out i was prego - fell out of my music life. Not to mention trying to find new music these days in my new busy life is difficult until my friend told me to check your project out. thank goodness - now i do not have to listen to local radio stations in my house (who never really seem to play the variety i want) thank you for helping me spend my money wisely and helping enjoy new music plus my old favs.

It's truly great to have this. Revolutionary. But...why all the live tracks? Why not the original "Down By the River" instead of the renunion tour released 20 years after the fact? Why the Who tracks from Live at Leeds rather than the original? Or is this just a quirk of the moment? Also, I've had two Clash songs -- both from Clash on Broadway, the best of, and both previously unreleased tracks. Why not album tracks? Are there legal limitations here? It's the one downside to an excellent, excellent service. And this is from a musician with several albums on three different major and two indie labels who wonders how he can get his music here....

First, love Pandora! It is the most awesome website ever. Are y'all going to put some classical on Pandora? If Bach was well represented I would be in Heaven.

Later

this is a great set up but you should make it easier to find specific songs and access them as like a personel top twenty station or sumthing. that would make me really happy. thanks u guys are doin great!ace

Hi Tim and all,
I want to thank you all again for Pandora. I have been exposed to musicians that I would have never known of. I have so so many favorites. My latest discovery thank to Pandora is Eva Cassidy. She has the voice of an Angel. I live to hear her sing "How can I keep from singing". Oh how I love that song! I listen to hear it daily.

Thank you for taking me back home to my "Roots" of Gospel Music. I listen all day. Thank you so much and may God Bless you for your good works. You are a Blessing to me.

Your biggest fan with songs in my heart.

Brendah C. DeBow

I love the pandora stumbled on it the other day what a great way to listen to new music i might not have ever listened to.So much music so little time great job thank you very much mat x.

Hello. I think that when you enter in a song in the station thing, you should be able to listen to that song, becuase I'm up for finding new music I like and all, but i would really like to be able to listen to a certain song that I already know and love. So I think that when you enter the song, that perticular song should be the first one to play. And also if not that, then you should be able to skip as many songs as you like in one hour. It gets really annoying having to wait through it all. But besides those two things, I like it.

Wow Guys!!!

This site is crazy!!! You guys will go very far!!

Im your most satisfied customer!!!

Thanks!!

Viva Pandora!!!

I just found out about your site, and i think it is great. I have already given it to several of my friends. The music is very clear and consise. I'm waiting for you to connect to classical music as that is one of my favorite's. Keep up the good work and thanks for the beautiful music.

Ken Ryan

Would you ever consider taking the text into the account? F. ex. I love Shel Silverstein, but only for his funny texts. I would never listen to him for the sake of his music.

Man oh man have you guys got a great ear!! I'm from London and this project is so in synch with what is needed. I hope you guys fall asleep with a smile on your face! Peace and much love. A very happy, chilled and appreciative Fais!

Pandora was recommended to me by a friend and it has become my new best friend whilst on rehab downtime in London.

I like what you've done with it and that you can't force it to play any particular song. It's a fantastic tool for discovery, which I daresay was the primary aim.

One suggestion that springs to mind after a day or so of use, once you have created various stations for different tastes in music (as I have done, I can't speak for others) would it be possible to implement something that allows you to check what artists you have manually added, so you don't add the same one twice? Or have something let you know that you are trying to add an artist on multiple occasions?

Oh and, is there anyway you can implement a function for artist suggestions? I've tried adding some German artists without success and would love to add them to Pandora.

Fantastic idea, brilliant work, please keep it up!

Many thanks.

Sam

How about a remember that song option as songs are played, to create a list of my favorites of favorites so later I can go and download the mp3's of those songs from your website. You can even make a few bucks!

Great stuff guys, after finding a load of new names to get my ehh ears into.
Have sent it on at work to others who love it too.

I know it's streaming so this probably isn't possible but the option to go back to songs you've just heard would be really cool.
And say, I was looking for funk songs, could it just throw up a random selection of funk songs instead of songs with funk in the title.

Keep up the good work

Hi Sam,

I'm glad to say that we do have the feature you're suggesting. To bookmark a song, mouse over the album cover that appears in the tuner window, then click the up arrow and choose bookmark song on the resulting menu.

You can then see a list of your bookmarked songs (and even hear snippets of them) on your profile page.

Enjoy!

Seana

I can't tell you how wonderful Pandora is! My musical tasts are a little unusual, not at all mainstream, and I stopped listening to music radio years ago, because there were no stations that I could stand, not even on satellite.

However, with your service I can not only listen to the songs I like, but I can find new ones, too. That's been a problem...my friends tease me that I haven't heard a new artist since 1975! While that is indeed an exaggeration, it's only a small one.

One suggestion, if I may be so bold: I have set up stations that are quite exclusive, very narrow in their focus. Sometimes a song will play on one station that I really like, but it doesn't fit with the style I have selected for that station. It would be nice if there were an option for, "Don't play this song on THIS station, but do play it on this OTHER station."

Keep up the wonderful work!

Aloha,
Please add different Hawaiian genre to your selections. For example, slack key, Jawaiian, oldies, contemporary, etc. Also, please add Hawaii to your tour.

Hi together!

I am a 40 year young guy from Germany with a not good english writing. My apologizes for this!

But i have to write to you that i am becoming a big fan of the Pandora Idee for the last weeks.

It is awsome how great is work and how many new musik i have found thru it!

It would be very interesting to know how Pandora is useing outside the USA.

But so far many many thank for this great work!!!

cheers... Holger

I asked Pandora for songs by the artist Damita Jo (Dublanc), specically, the song, "If you go away". No joy; Pandora said it did not recognize her...

Hi:
We do not understand each-other.
I have four "stations". One record (track) can only belong on one station. That is by definition (mine).

Dixieland Jazz is small band jazz (5 to 8 players), but of a particular style - it is usually a driving 2-beat style, but with a lot of slow blues. Joe Oliver played mostly Dixieland. Whenever Louis Armstrong played in a small band it was Dixieland. Others are Bix, Jelly Roll, Lu Waters Yerba Buana, Turk Murphy, Eddie Condon, Wild Bill Davidson and Max Kaminski.

If it is small band jazz, but not Dixieland (2-beat), it should be on my Small Band Jazz station. You have played a lot of this for me, but you have had it on my DEixieland station where doesn't belong.

On my Small Band Jazz station you have been playing a lot of Tenor Sax solo stuff. It does belong there, but so does a lot of other small band stuff you play. I haven't heard you play any yet, but Benny Goodman Trio, Quartet and Sextet belong in Small Band Jazz. It is not Dixieland.

Solo Piano Jazz should be pretty self explanitory.

Big Band Swing is always 12 or more musicians reading music (charts). It is not jazz because they are reading. That is why we call it swing. It isn't simple Big Band because they play jazz (ad lib - not read) solos.

I thought everyone understood all that, but I guess if they are under something like 70 years old they don't. You have to understand what was going on in New Orleans in the 1910s and 1920s, Chicago in the 1920s and early 1930s, and New York in the 1930s and 1940s. When they came with bebop in the late 1940s, they were playing pure crap. After 1950, if they remained true to pure jazz they were OK. Guys like Coleman Hawkins played well for years and then went bad with bop.

Dizzy Gillespie and Bird Parker were always bad, as are all the guys who came later and played like that. I was in college in the late 1940s when bop came along. Those of us who remained true to jazz were known as "moldy figs". I don't remember what we called the modernist boppers. I guess just "shit".

Maybe we understand each other better now. One particulat track can only go in one of my stations by my definition.

Hi:

Some band leaders like Louis Armstrong and Al Hirt have recorded with their small Dixieland band up front on the stage with a great big band behind them on the stage. It is Dixieland Jazz when the small band is playing by themselves, but it isn't when the big band plays a few choruses (reading music) along with the Dixieland Band. I have to make a choice about which "station" that track should be on; Dixieland Jazz Band or Big Band Swing. I allow a particular track to be on only one of my "stations".

Hi:

Some other "Solo Piano Jazz" players are Art Tatum, Meade "Lux" Lewis, "Pinetop" Smith, Neville Dickie and Willie "The Lion" Smith.

Okay, I'm not sure where to begin... I discovered Pandora today through a friend and I've only been listening for a half hour. I have a few questions... Who links all the bands together? How come you only seem to have the most recent albums by these bands? The first band I typed was the Divine Comedy, and I was hoping to get a glorious afternoon of listening to their whole catalogue (since all my tapes are at home) but instead I've been subjected to all kinds of tawdry boring nonsense by Tindersticks, Belle & Sebastien, etc. Whoever categorized the Divine Comedy seems to have missed the whole point of the band - they're fun!!! And if I want to listen to bands "like" them, I'd rather listen to the Bluetones, Idlewild, Super Furry Animals, something with a kick to it! Anyway, I'll keep listening and trying other bands and we'll see...

Hi Partner,
I have a very good news for you and i know it will interest you but i will like to explain fully as soon as you get back to me through your private email adress.
From a good partner.
Thanks
Coleman Theresa.

Have a listen to Lenine Mastretta. Contemporary Brazilian with an excellent modern take on various Brazilian modes.

I think this is a great idea! I'm mainly into classical but have been having a whale of a time listening to my "Frank Sinatra" station. Lots of great tunes. I e-mailed a suggestion (albeit very premptory and naively, I'm sure) of some classical taxonomy that might be useful in order to tackle that massive beast. I think, in essence, there is an inverse relationship of classical to more contemporary types of music in that because of the classification of classical into certain forms and types (symphonies, sonatas, concertos, and tempo indications of the movements, etc) already makes your job easier I might portend than having to deal with all the genomes of say a pop tune? Anyway, keep up the great work! Pandora is one of the greatest things since sliced bread and I think it will become a new internet axiom in the 21st century. (Like the word "Google" people will know what you mean when you say "Pandora").

Scott

Ditto the comment on "more African music": I.K Dairo, Rochereau, Oliver Mtukudze, Thomas Mapfumo, the amazing world of music from Mali, Senegal, Nigerian High Life. I was dreaming of building my ideal station. My tastes are varied and eclectic and definitely worldwide. It's disappointing the Pandora doesn't have a broader base of music (yet). Otherwise this is so dang coo1! I told a woman I'd never met before about it while we were in the grocery store together, not to mention all my music-loving friends.

We went to the San Francisco town hall on May 22, 2007. It was so inspiring to learn about the history of the company and how they kept going even when things looked very bleak. As both a songwriter and music fan, it was also exciting to hear about the future of Pandora radio! Thanks Pandora for physically bringing everyone together to share this moment. It was truly a relief from the "virtual world." - Vanessa Van Spall