Music Business Radio
Episode #64 - Tim Westergren
March 24th, 2008
Tim Westergren founded Pandora in January 2000 and now serves as its Chief Strategy Officer. He is an award-winning composer, an accomplished musician and a record producer with 20 years of experience in the music industry. He spends most of his time these days as Pandora's chief evangelist - traveling the country to meet with listeners to collect feedback, research local music, and spread the word of the Music Genome Project.
We talked about ways people find out about new music, the changing music industry, how to build a business, and more.
Hear the whole interview at MusicBusinessRadio.com
The Washington Post
Name That Tune-In: Who Will Emerge as The Future of Radio?
by Marc Fisher
March 23rd, 2008
As the audience for AM and FM radio declines, start-up entrepreneurs and giant media companies alike search for the "next radio" -- a way to make money by helping listeners discover new music.
Read the whole article at Washingtonpost.com
USA Today
Tune in, Turn on to Music on These Five Sites
by Mike Snider
March 25th, 2008
The millions of users of music-focused social networking websites have caught the attention of artists and labels. "With so many people spending such longsessions on the (sites), the bands want to get in front of you," says Paul Resnikoff, editor of DigitalMusicNews.com. USA TODAY offers a playlist of tuneful social sites:
Read the whole article at USAToday.com
The Austin American Statesman
Online Radio Station Pandora Reaches Out in Austin
by Kathy Adams
March 8th, 2008
With South by Southwest bringing volumes of new music to Austin starting this weekend, one group will represent an online service whose aim is at the very heart of Austin's music culture.
Representatives from the free online radio station Pandora will attend the festival to look for new music and participate in a panel at the Interactive Festival on Tuesday called "FM 2.0: The Future of Internet Radio."
The 3-year-old Web site's purpose is twofold: help listeners discover new music and give artists a leg up in the feast-or-famine music business, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said.
Read the whole article at statesman.com
The Boston Herald
Pandora Lifts Lid on Personalizing Online Radio
by Jed Gottlieb
February 26th, 2008
Tim Westergren just wanted to roam the earth like Kane looking for music. His plan was to simply breeze into a town, check out the scene, absorb some new sounds and move on.
But like Pandora - the free, personalized online radio Web site Westergren founded in 2005 - his humble idea is on the verge of exploding into a phenomenon.
Wednesday, Westergren’s brings his tour to Boston University’s Morse Auditorium, where he’ll spend a couple hours with Pandorites waxing poetic about his revolutionary musical invention.
Read the whole article at bostonherald.com
The Orlando Weekly
Personal Shoppers: Music Geneticists Mine Individual Tastes
by Chris Parker
January 3rd, 2008
Music and technology are forever intertwined, from the Player Piano to the gramophone and radio, through the eight-track and Walkman to compact discs and iPods. The medium changes and the musical tides may briefly ebb, but demand for recorded music never wanes. And competition remains heated to win the dollars that come from sound delivery. For instance, whereas in the ’80s record stores, distributors and labels all shared in the CD boon, since 2001 and the introduction of the iPod, many of the digital age’s benefits have flowed directly to Apple.
Read the whole article at Orlandoweekly.com
San Francisco Bay Guardian
How Tim Westergren built the world's smartest jukebox
by Sam Devine
January 9th, 2008
Before Tim Westergren founded the Music Genome Project and Pandora, an online radio station-music recommendation site that's developed a cultlike following, he had no idea what he was going to do for a living. After all, how do you prepare for a job that doesn't exist yet?
Read the whole article at SFBG.com
USA Today
Ed Baig Counts Down the Best Tech Gadgets for the Year
by Edward C. Baig
December 26, 2007
Home telephone service without a monthly bill. A bookstore that delivers best sellers to an e-book reader in a jiffy. And a smartphone that all but rewrites the rules of what a cellphone should be. These were among the tech items to capture my fancy this year.
Read the whole article at USAToday.com
The Tennessean
Pandora's music box packs in Web users
by Ryan Underwood
December 16, 2007
Imagine being able to type a few of your favorite songs or artists into a huge musical database and get a free radio station - without any commercial interruptions - made just for you.
Read the whole article at Tennessean.com
Inc. Magazine
Pandora's Long Strange Trip
by Stephanie Clifford
October, 2007
Tim Westergren is due to take the stage in an hour, yet he seems half asleep. His shoulders are rolled forward, his hair floppy and unbrushed, and he's wearing loose blue jeans and scuffed hiking boots. He ambles around the auditorium he's rented at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art while the staff of Pandora, the online radio company he founded, buzzes around him. The salespeople smile at the advertisers, the biz-dev folks pump the arms of partners, the engineers form a nervous little knot. Meanwhile, the crowd gathering outside the auditorium doors keeps getting larger.
Read the whole article at Inc.com
CNET
Pandora: From zero to addicted in 10 minutes
by Daniel Terdiman
October 9, 2007
It took me until today to finally try out Pandora, the Internet site that lets you create custom radio stations based on your music preferences. And now I think I know something about instant addiction. I signed up, entered a single artist to create a radio station around, and about eight songs in, I'm just totally hooked.
Read the whole article at CNET
Smart Money
Pandora's Bach
by Kristen Vala
October 2007 Issue
Click. Click. That's the sound of your musical horizons expanding. At Pandora.com, enter the names of your favorite artists and the site creates personalized radio based on your standbys. You can rate and bookmark songs-the site has 500,000 of them, from more than 35,000 artists-and create up to 100 "stations," as well as listen to those of other users.
Read the whole article at Smart Money
Esquire
Digital Weekend
A Weekend with the Sonnenfelds
by Barry Sonnenfeld
October 2007 Issue
Tell Pandora you're a big Neil Young fan, for example, and you've got Neil and his friends all day and all night. I no longer even use my iTunes library, which Sweetie counts as a blessing.
Download a PDF of the article here
CNET
Revelations from Pandora's Music Box
by Candace Lombardi
September 18, 2007
What will it take to create the middle-class musician? It's an idea Pandora founder Tim Westergren thinks about a lot. Between 100 town hall meetings and several sessions for seniors at this year's AARP conference, Westergen has been campaigning for more Internet radio listeners for both Pandora and musicians in general.
Read the whole article at CNET
Newsday
Online Music for the Least-Tech Savvy
by Lou Dolinar
August 31, 2007
Pandora is minimally invasive. You don't download software. It runs right out of your browser. So it leaves no footprint on your PC - everything is saved to network servers - and it is just as easy to log into your account from one system as another. The least tech-savvy person in the world can be up and running in minutes.
Read the whole article at Newday
New York Post
Pimp Your Cell!
by Mary Huhn
August 22, 2007
Pandora on Sprint
What: Type in your favorite artist, and it provides a radio-station-like stream of tunes based on that musician's sound and style. Bookmark a song and find it later at Pandora.com.
Why it's cool: Users create stations and walk around with a personalized deejay.
Read the whole article at New York Post
Webware
The REAL Ultimate Music Recommendation Smackdown
by Jasmine France
July 17, 2007
Pandora came out on top with just one skip, or a pass rate of 95 percent...Of course, in the end it boils down to personal preference. I skipped so much of the Last.fm station because it was more mellow than what I was looking for; Pandora, on the other hand, was playing upbeat tracks, which I tend to lean toward at work.
Read the whole article at Webware
Webware
Webware "100" Winners 2007
by Webware staff
June 18, 2007
There were more than 5,000 nominations for sites to be included in this awards program, which Webware's editors pruned to a list of 250 finalists. Users then voted on those finalists--there were 489,467 votes cast--to come up with these: The top 100 Webware sites for 2007.
Pandora - With enough use, it can effectively introduce you to all sorts of new music, and users can make their own radio stations based on personal tastes.
Read the whole article at Webware
UCLA Daily Bruin
Internet radio for the musical middle class
by Alex LaRue
June 11, 2007
When Tim Westergren created Pandora.com, he was thinking about musicians.
A musician himself, he founded a Web site that was something of a reference tool to help musicians connect with listeners. The site allowed listeners to find artists with styles similar to those they already enjoyed using the Music Genome Project, which catalogs musical attributes. Pandora became a powerful tool for discovering familiarity in the often dauntingly unknown world of underground music.
Read the whole article at The Daily Bruin
Marie Claire
Bookmark This!
June 2007 Issue
When your cubemate's over-the-phone breakup becomes too much to bear: Pandora.com. Staffers analyze songs using hundreds of criteria (lyrics, melody, etc.) and cross-reference them to build custom shuffles. Type in a favorite artist and broadcast your playlist, live from your desk.
USA Today
Net radio faces swan song if fees increase
by Michelle Kessler
May 23, 2007
Tim Westergren played piano in an acoustic-rock band before founding Pandora, a music software company that has evolved into one of the most popular radio stations on the Internet.
Tuesday, he unveiled a host of new features for his fast-growing site, including one streaming Pandora to Sprint cellphones. Customers with a wireless data plan, which usually costs about $20 a month, can pay an extra $3 a month to listen to Pandora anywhere they have a cellphone signal.
Read the whole article at USA Today
PC World
The 100 Best Products of 2007
Our editors rank the best PCs, HDTVs, components, sites, and services.
Edited by Eric Dahl
May 21, 2007
17. Pandora.com (digital music site; free) Sadly, the current scrap over Internet-radio royalty payments may turn this award into a eulogy for Pandora, a nifty Internet radio service that learns your preferences and plays songs you've never heard but will probably like.
Read the whole article at PC World
Crunchgear
The Futurist: The Future of Pandora is Mobile
by Seth Porges
May 17, 2007
If you aren't familiar with Pandora, you obviously haven't stepped foot in an American office in the past year, where it has spread from headphone-bound cubicle worker to headphone-bound cubicle worker like crazy. The short of it: The Music Genome Project has mapped out a bounty of songs based on often-obscure musical traits (think "Groove Based Composition" or "East Coast Rap Influences"). You type in a song or artist you like, and the player takes over--creating an ad hoc radio station based on your choice filled with songs that share one or more trait with your beloved tune.
Read the whole article at CrunchGear
The News & Observer
Your PC might be a zombie
by Paul Gilster
May 16, 2007
Pandora.com is an outrageously addictive Internet music service.
I was about to recommend it anyway when it suddenly sprang into the news. First came word that Pandora, along with other Internet radio companies, would face a hugely inflated fee structure, courtesy of the Copyright Royalty Board. Then came the news that the service would become unavailable to international listeners because of complications related to paying rights-holders in individual countries.
Read the whole article at The News & Observer (scroll down for Pandora section)
The Harvard Crimson
Four Reasons Radio Lives
Radio Free Harvard
by Kimberley E. Gittleson and Evan L. Hanlon
April 27, 2007
Some technologically savvy entrepreneurs have started to expand traditional notions of radio in radical ways. Tapping into the desire for unique programming without a constant cycle of top 40 hits, Pandora has brought the internet's flexibility to radio for more than a year now. Pandora creates personal radio stations for each listener based on their taste. It's the closest thing to a personal DJ, mixing up old favorites with new jams that make it nearly impossible to tune out.
Read the whole article at The Harvard Crimson
Newsweek
Pandora's Music Box
by Steven Levy
April 16, 2007
Tim Westergren's brain-child, "The Music Genome Project," sounds vaguely "Monty Python"-ish - a system by which trained musician-analysts break down songs into hundreds of categories to find which tunes work well together in playlists. But it's proved to be an effective foundation for his company: a free Internet-based radio-style service that lets people create personal radio stations based on their favorite artists. With more than 6 million subscribers, Pandora is one of the most popular of the new wave of Net-based digital music start-ups.
Read the whole article at Newsweek
InformationWeek
6 Internet Radio Sites Help You Discover New Music
Internet radio is enjoying an explosion of new services that could make it a viable replacement for broadcast radio
by David Dejean
April 15, 2007
Personalization lets listeners tell a site to "play music like this" by seeding their channel with a few favorite artists, tracks, or albums; the site then matches the user to more music. The simple way is to funnel the user into a playlist. But more and more, advanced sites are beginning apply algorithms that pick tracks based on the user's real-time feedback. On the cutting edge of this method are sites like Pandora, Last.fm, and Slacker.
Read the whole article at InformationWeek
Delta Sky
Opening Pandora's Music Box
Stuck in a musical rut? Let Pandora introduce you to more of the music you'd like to be listening to.
by Timothy Harper
April 2007 Issue
The music industry has taken notice of Pandora. Jason Hirschhorn, until recently chief digital officer of MTV Networks, believes Pandora is the future of music, and that the big recording companies should take heed. As musicians hook up with marketing companies to spread the word, he says, it will redefine the role of the record label. Imagine, he suggests, if the next "American Idol" winner turns down the plum prize, a recording contract, and instead says, "Thanks, but I'd rather reach my fans directly, so that they pay less for my music and I make more from it."
Read the whole article online at Delta Sky
CNN
CNN Newsroom: Pioneer Segment
April 8, 2007
"Ever wish you could create your own radio station? Pandora.com lets you be your own DJ.
'Pandora is an online radio station that allows you to quickly and easily create stations that just play music you like based on the Music Genome Project'
In the Music Genome Project, a team of musicians has already analyzed the musical DNA of a half million songs."
The New York Times - Technology
A Radio Station Just for you
by Wilson Rothman
March 29, 2007
Now that the free ad-supported service has been operational for 15 months, it can use the behavioral data of its six million listeners to add a new layer of suggestion. For instance, even if, on paper, the musicologists think it logical to pair a song by the "American Idol" superstar Clay Aiken with one by the Canadian folk balladeer Ron Sexsmith, several hundred listeners may give the juxtaposition a vote of no confidence. Tim Westergren, a Pandora co-founder, says the database now contains half a billion useful points of "contextual feedback."
Clickz
Customized Ad Content Sounds Great
by Tessa Wegert
March 29, 2007
In the year or so Pandora's been in operation (prior to launching the site, the Music Genome Project white-labeled its service for AOL Music and retail kiosks, such as Best Buy and Tower Records), it's become the third largest Internet radio provider. The site just hit 6 million U.S. registered listeners, receiving over 5 million unique visitors each month. Though you might think it skews particularly young, the majority of Pandora's audience falls squarely into the 18-39 demographic.
"We really believe this is the future of online radio, online radio for the digital age," says Cheryl Lucanegro, VP of advertising sales at Pandora Media. "Music is personal. With Pandora, you not only get to listen, but it's personalized, and something you're actually creating."
Read the whole article at Clickz
Teevya
Mavericks in the Valley - A weekly series about new, inspiring startups based in Silicon Valley
March 1, 2007
Tim Westergren spent his first ten years after college working in the music industry -- playing in a rock band, composing and producing records. In early 2000, he founded Pandora, a music search engine that automatically delivers new music to users based on their individual likes and dislikes.
At Pandora, "music analysts" listen to thousands of songs and manually rate each one according to over four-hundred musical attributes. These attributes are then used to synthesize radio stations which cater to a person's specific musical tastes.
Watch the full video interview at Teevya
Net Magazine
technique/how_we_built
January 2007 Issue
The clever algorithms within Pandora's code are just one part of what makes it a great app. Tom Conrad explains how to make a great-looking user interface.
Pandora started with the basics, listening to music one song at a time. With the Music Genome Project, the team designed and built the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Each and every day Pandora's music analysts spend up to 30 minutes per song, carefully identifying and analyzing chose to 400 musical details on every recording. Pandora then focused on delivering a user experience that was simple and to the point.
Denver Post
Open Pandora's website to a personal radio station
by Bret Saunders
January 27, 2007
To put it bluntly, Pandora "knows" more than a mere mortal could possibly know. I was chess master Gary Kasparov to Pandora's Deep Blue. But Kasparov was never serenaded, as far as I know, by a jubilant Sonny Rollins blowout, compliments of a triumphant computer program like I was, so there's that.
This could be the beginning of a revolution in the way consumers buy and enjoy music, and, at the least, a great way to enter the daunting world of jazz. And eventually, everyone could become a know-it-all. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to try to convince myself that I'm not on the verge of becoming obsolete.
Read the whole article at DenverPost.com
Popular Mechanics
Your Own Digital DJ
by Glenn Derene
January 2007 Issue
Internet radio services have evolved. Users of this Java-based player enter a song or artist that they link. Then, Pandora creates a streaming "channel" based on the selection. For each new song, users can vote thumbs up or down - and such responses from the user refine future selections.
O, The Oprah Magazine
Your Own Private DJ
by Rachael Bertsche
December 2006 Issue
Suppose music had DNA, and suppose your favorite song was Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke." If you could strip it down to its genetic coding, you'd learn that you're a sucker for major-key tonality, groove-based composition, and a busy horn section. Deconstructing musical taste is the principle behind Pandora.com, a database powered by the Music Genome Project, a group of obsessive musician-academics.
Current.TV
Viewer Created Content: Pandora Video
by Michael Jacobs
December 8, 2006
"One of my new favorite sites is Pandora. It's a great source for streaming music, and it plays a lot of stuff I haven't heard before. I'd say Pandora has definitely rejuvenated me in listening and finding new music. When you find something you like, you can buy it off iTunes, you can buy it off Amazon."
Watch the segment at Current.TV
Fortune
The race to create a 'smart' Google
by Jeffrey M O'Brien
November 20, 2006
To draw a line from Bloc Party to Fire When Ready, the Music Genome Project combs through hundreds of thousands of songs and millions of pieces of user feedback. It's an impressive technological accomplishment but not nearly as impressive as the implications.
If Pandora can nail me as a fan of a band that few people have ever heard of, and my musical tastes are an intimate expression of who I am, then Pandora could introduce me to a lot more than music.
Read the whole article at Fortune
The New York Times - Arts & Leisure
The New Tastemakers
Music fans are learning to trust one another more than the experts. No wonder they're making the industry so nervous.
by Jeff Leeds
September 3, 2006
At pandora.com visitors are invited to enter the name of their favorite artist or song and to get in return a stream of music with similar "DNA," in effect a private Internet radio station microtailored to each user's tastes. Since the service made its debut last November, more than three million people have signed up.
But they are tuning to more than a musicologist's online toy: services like Pandora have become the latest example of how technology is shaking up the hierarchy of tastemakers across popular culture. In music the shift began when unauthorized file-sharing networks like the original Napster allowed fans to snatch up the songs they wanted, instantly and free.
Read the whole article online here
Download a PDF of the article (with full illustrations) here
O'Reilly Digital Media
Inside Pandora: Web Radio That Listens to You
by Brad Fuller
August 17, 2006
The magic of Pandora derives from a simple principle: a song listeners enjoy should lead to other songs they'll enjoy. Pandora is an Internet music service with an unusual twist: you merely select a song or artist you like and the system builds a playlist of additional songs based on those musical characteristics.
Read the whole article at O'Reilly
USA Weekend
Let your computer pick a tune you'll like
by Reed Tucker
August 13, 2006
Discovering new music that you're practically guaranteed to like is easier than you think. Simply log onto pandora.com, then enter in the name of one of your favorite songs or bands, and the site will begin playing a succession of songs similar to your choice that it thinks you'll dig. It's both cool and a little scary.
Read the whole article at USAWeekend.com
Parenting
Your Time
Music just for you
by Hilary Locker Fussteig
August Issue
Bored with your iPod repertoire? Check out Pandora.com. Enter the name of a favorite song or artist, and the site will stream similar music based on vocal style, melody, lyrics, and so on. Store up to 100 "radio stations." Best of all: it's free. And that's music to our ears.
GQ
5 Point Plan for August
by Kevin Sintumuang
August Issue
Pandora is a free music-streaming Web site that lets you discover new music according to your tastes. Simply type in a band name or song title and Pandora generates a station that streams similar-sounding songs.
New music is uploaded to Pandora every day, and you can change the direction of your stations by giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down to tracks you love or hate. Who knew that Wolf Parade + Wolfmother = L.A. guns?
Southwest Airlines Spirit
DJ, I Am
by Chris Tucker
July Issue
The results [of Pandora] range from intriguing to ingenious with only a few misfires, in my experience. When I gambled with headbanger supreme Rob Zombie, Pandora matched his decibel avalanche with thunder-rockers like bloodsimple, The Ruby Doe, and Powerman 5000.
When I set up a Bonnie Raitt station to soothe my wounded ears, the lineup led to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Runaways, Something Corporate, and Fastball, good choices all.
Time
50 Coolest Websites 2006
A variety of amusements, from classic rock to famous photography, collage art to custom radio, plus our favorite video web logs
by Maryanne Murray Buechner
July 26, 2006
Type in the name of your favorite band, and within moments the site will be streaming a radio station, featuring songs from that band and others like it, to your desktop through your browser - no registration and no downloads required.
Read the whole article at Time.com
CNET
Pandora's music box inspires fans
by Stefanie Olsen
July 20, 2006
Tim Westergren could be thought of as a modern-day Santa Claus with a bag full of compact discs you've probably never heard of.
The founder of Pandora, a 7-month-old, so-called music-discovery engine, Westergren travels from town to town, sharing his time and story with fans who, because of his service, say they've rediscovered a love of newfound music.
Read the whole article at CNET
Newsweek
Geezer-Pleasers
How can boomers find new bands they'll actually like? The Web has some very surprising answers.
by Steven Levy
July 17, 2006
The advent of digital music (with the help of a new tech boom) has led to an explosion of start-ups whose goal is to direct users to artists and songs that satisfy their individual tastes. These turn out to be perfect for rockers of a certain age who crave the energy and innovation of new bands, but don't want to stray too far from the music they've always enjoyed.
One of the early discovery sites is Pandora, founded by former musician Tim Westergren.
Read the whole article at Newsweek.com
Wilmington-Star News
Outside the Box
Pandora Rekindles the Magic of Music
by Zach Hanner
July 13, 2006
While it's a bit of a stretch to compare the technology behind the Music Genome Project and its interface, www.pandora.com, with the box of legend, hope certainly is a factor in its effect on users. With so many ways to consume music these days, Pandora provides listeners with a giant database of music and connects like-minded songs and artists, creating playlists that will remind you of songs you had forgotten and introduce you to music that you'll love.
Read the whole article at The Wilmington-Star News Online
The Wall Street Journal
Under Recommendation Engines' Hood
The Choices Engines Make for Us May Be
More Accurate Than We'd Like to Believe
by Jason Fry
June 12, 2006
Last week I started playing around with Pandora, a streaming-music service that several folks have recommended to me. At 37, I'm facing a familiar trap for music fans: I have less and less time and find myself gravitating toward the familiar, yet don't want to admit that my musical tastes have ossified and I'm hopelessly out of it.
Read the whole article at The Wall Street Journal Online
Dazed&Confused (UK)
Online Oracle: The Music Genome Project
by Denna Jones
July issue
"I want everyone to have moments where they reassess what music they think they like or don't like and constantly add to their personal back catalogue"
Pollstar
Gigs & Bytes: Pandora's Music Box
by Jay Smith
June 8, 2006
Sometimes something is so cool that you don't need extensive media coverage to get the word out. Instead, word of mouth does the heavy lifting, spreading the message faster than any media campaign can accomplish. If people like something, they'll tell their friends. In this age of e-mail, instant messaging and blogging, an honest good word about a product or service can sometimes do more than an ad placement during the Super Bowl or a nod from Oprah.
That is what has happened with Pandora, an Internet radio service launched last year that was immediately recognized by the hipper-than-thou Net music crowd as one of the best ideas of 2005.
Read the whole article at Pollstar
TheTechLounge
Opening Pandora's Box
by Bradford Day
May 30, 2006
Who is your favorite band? What do they sound like? Who else sounds like them? Have you ever sat around with your friends and asked these same questions? Chances are that most of your music collection, be it digital, CD or vinyl, was heavily influenced by bands that were recommended to you by friends or other sources.
Read the whole article at TheTechLounge
The Underground Mine
Pandora, the Future of Radio
Interviews with founder Tim Westergren and COO Etienne Handman
by June Caldwell
May 27, 2006
Imagine a day in the life of the founder of an online radio company spending most of his time traveling the country meeting his users face to face. Not just paying lip service to listening to his users, I had the adventure of an interview with Tim Westergren by cell phone while Tim was driving around Athens, Georgia en route to a meet-up with Pandora listeners! This guy is the real deal.
Read the whole interview with Tim at The Underground Mine
Read the whole interview with Etienne at The Underground Mine
Entertainment Weekly
The 25 Best Music Websites
See Entertainment Weekly's picks for where to pick up on hot new tunes
by Michael Endelman
May 26, 2006
Perfect for anyone who likes surprises, Pandora is a wizardly website that lets you customize a radio station to fit your own tastes.
Read the whole article at EntertainmentWeekly.com
HowStuffWorks
How Pandora Radio Works
by Julia Layton
May 25, 2006
When you create a radio station on Pandora, it uses a pretty radical approach to delivering your personalized selections: Having analyzed the musical structures present in the songs you like, it plays other songs that possess similar musical traits. Pandora relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributes covering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics.
Read the whole article at HowStuffWorks.com
DailyCandy
Pandora's Lunch Box
May 5, 2006
Monday: soup.
Tuesday: salad.
Wednesday: soup and salad. (Yawn.)
If your ears are as bored as your taste buds, check out Pandora. The service creates a streaming radio station based around your favorite artist or song, so it's easy to mix up your music menu. And because it's customized, it satisfies even the pickiest listener.
Read the whole article at Daily Candy
kickinthepods
Pandora.com
by Matthew Layton
May 4, 2006
Matthew talks to Tim Westergren, the brains behind the marvellous pandora.com
Tim tells how he came up with the idea for the internet's number one site for discovering new music, the painstaking process of mapping musical DNA, and his visit to the very crossroads where Robert Johnson did his deal with the devil.
Listen to the podcast at kickinthepods
NPR
Tuesday Music: Free Music on the Web... No, Really!
by Mara Liasson
May 2, 2006
Today is Tuesday and instead of blogging about new releases, Ben Brudevold-Newman (TIBA -- the intrepid blog assistant) came up with a better idea: a guidepost to places where you can't actually download the music, but you can listen to almost anything you want, whenever you want.
Read the whole article at NPR.com
PC World: Steve Bass's Tips & Tweaks
Find Yourself Some New Tunes
by Steve Bass
April 25, 2006
I've been stuck in a musical rut lately, listening to the same old jazz CDs over and over again. That's gotta stop, I told myself, and did some searching to get myself some new tunes (as long as it's jazz...).
First stop, PC World's Narasu Rebbapragada did some searching and came up with Great Online Sources for Finding New Music.
And I have to say, Narasu came up with some gems, like Pandora, a site that lets you make your own "radio station." Just enter an artist name and sit back and enjoy tracks from that artist plus some you may not have heard of.
Read the whole article at PC World
Entrepeneur.com
All Aboard?
Is your company's concept so cutting edge that investors won't touch it? Here's how to get their attention--and their money.
by Jay Smith
April 15, 2006
Back in 2000, just before the bottom fell out of the IPO market and VCs began shut-ting their doors to just about everyone, entrepreneur Tim Westergren managed to raise $1.5 million in seed money for his fledgling company. Westergren, a former musician, came up with the idea to create a sophisticated database to help music lovers identify artists and songs they might like based on their listening tastes.
Read the whole article at Entrepeneur.com
Boise Weekly
Music box DNA
Pandora opens the doors of your perception
by Rachael Daigle
April 12, 2006
For the sake of creating a more navigable infrastructure for travelers wandering about in the universe of noise, a group of music nerds spent the last six years flushing out the science in the music. Since 2000, the creators of the Oakland, California-based Music Genome Project have been busy mimicking, not just the name of their Human Genome Project counterpart, but the goal as well--although with a slightly different end in mind, mapping the genes of music to create what they hope will be "the most comprehensive analysis of music ever."
Read the whole article at boiseweekly.com
Esquire
Bank on It
My Five Educated Predictions For The Rest Of The Year
By Andy Langer
Apr 1, 2006
PREDICTION: You will discover your musical genome.
Your newest obsession will be Pandora.com. This bound-to-be-copied offshoot of the Music Genome Project uses a series of mysterious algorithms to predict your musical taste and introduce you to new artists.
Read the whole article at KeepMedia.com
Film Fodder
Great Web Site: Pandora Music Discovery Service
by Mac
March 24, 2006
Every once in a while a friend will show me a site that absolutely blows my mind. The latest example is Pandora.
Don't be surprised if your first reaction to Pandora involves guffawing, swearing and general awestruckedness. It's that cool.
Read the whole article at FilmFodder.com
Terry Heaton's Pomo Blog
Don't Miss Pandora
by Terry Heaton
March 16, 2006
I've developed a new habit over the past few months that I want to share. It's called Pandora, and I think it may be the most significant new concept to come down the pike in years.
Read the whole article on donatacom.com
The New York Times
Matchmaker Pairs Computer and Stereo
by David Pogue
February 9, 2006
THOSE crazy kids today! Their home music systems often wind up split in two. In this corner: the computer, stuffed with music files copied from CD's or downloaded from the Internet. In that corner: the stereo system or home theater.
...beginning next week, the Squeezebox will do something no other hi-fi component can do: it will hook into Pandora.
Read the whole article at nytimes.com
Los Angeles Times
That Song Sounds Familiar
An online service helps users find new music through a 'genome project' that maps tunes' traits and spits out matches.
by Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer
February 3, 2006
OAKLAND - In the beginning, there was music. Childhood and young adulthood floated by to a soundtrack of lyrics and rhythms and searing guitar riffs that consumed you, became you, constituted your identity, galvanized your intent, spoke your soul.
But time passes, classrooms fade to cubicles, and a vast landscape of new music turns foreign and unexplored. For Jeff Hersh, 31, the stereo came to double as Proust's madeleine, its purpose to invoke memories rather than create them.
Read the whole article at www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/
Rolling Stone
Internet Leads Custom Radio
Sites give listeners playlists based on their musical taste patterns
by Evan Serpick
January 30, 2006
At night, Steve Hogan works as a professional pianist playing gigs around the Bay Area. But since 2000, he's spent his days in an Oakland office building, where he -- and thirty-five other hired ears -- get paid fifteen dollars an hour to listen to music. Spending twenty minutes with each song, they decide whether the vocals are "nasal" or "gritty," the harmony "chromatic" or "diatonic," the drums "tight" or "booming" -- gauging up to 400 components that make up its essence.
read the whole article at rollingstone.com
MTV.com
What Do Gwen And Fischerspooner Have In Common? Open Pandora's Box To Find Out
Online radio service uses unique 'gene' system to link popular, lesser-known artists.
By Gil Kaufman
January 19, 2006
Does something about the quiver in Shakira's voice move you? Check out the smooth Latin sounds of Curumin. Avenged Sevenfold's finger-bleeding riffs speak to your inner shredder? Perhaps you'll dig the double-kick-drum blitz of "Desaster and Decay" by Burden of Grief. Can't get that riff from Gwen Stefani's "Luxurious" out of your head? Try cleansing your musical palette with some Fischerspooner or Kelli Ali.
Read the whole article at MTV.com
Digitally Distorted
Pandora.com
January 20, 2006
This weeks show features Tim Westergren, Founder and C.E.O. of the online music streaming service Pandora (www.pandora.com). We talked about his service, music piracy and Tim answers the question on how to successfully run an online endeavor.
Listen to the podcast at digitallydistorted.com
East Bay Express
Pandora's Box
Can a company's musicological data mining breathe new life into the music industry?
By Kara Platoni
January 11, 2006
Today's lab team: one drummer, two saxophonists, two guitarists, one bassist, two pianists, one violinist. Today's specimen: Eminem's rap anthem "Lose Yourself." Today's mission: crack all 235 of the song's genes.
Yes, genes.
Welcome to the Music Genome Project, the most awesomely and exhaustively nerdy cataloguing endeavor in pop-music history. Founded by Stanford alum Tim Westergren, a pianist and former film composer, the Oakland-based project breaks down songs according to their component traits, or genes, just as the Human Genome Project has mapped nature's blueprints. "Genes collectively make a person tall or short, black or white, fast or slow, with freckles or not," Westergren says. "It's kind of like your building blocks -- and we think of this as the same thing for music."
Read the whole article at EastBayExpress.com
The Stanford Daily
Want a perfect playlist? Clairvoyant computers come to the rescue
By Andrew Leifer
January 10, 2006
Computers are not supposed to be able to read your mind, but in today's column we look at two cases where they come pretty darn close. The first is Pandora, a new Internet radio station that knows what kind of music you like.
Read the whole article at daily.stanford.edu
TechCrunch
Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn't Live Without
By Michael Arrington
December 30, 2005
I listen to Pandora whenever I write - sometimes for hours a day. I've discovered countless new artists from it.
Read the whole article at techcrunch.com
Fast Company
Algorhythm and Blues
How Pandora's matching service cuts the chaos of digital music.
By Linda Tischler
From: Issue 101 | December 2005 | Page 87
Peter Niessen isn't complaining. The 36-year-old director of strategic planning at American Express concedes he has a pretty nice life: a juicy job, a passport with stamps from Cambodia to Ecuador, and a slick Manhattan apartment with a roof deck.
Like many busy professionals, though, Niessen has paid for these blessings in a currency you can't stockpile in a 401(k): time. And as a former rock bassist, one of the most disheartening casualties of his maxed-out life is his ability to discover new music. Carless in New York, he hasn't listened to radio in five years. The lazy afternoons at Tower Records are long gone. "I used to depend on friends," he says, "but I can't look to them as much anymore. It's not that I value music less. I just don't have time to find it."
Read the whole article at fastcompany.com
MacVoices
Pandora Founder Tim Westergren Discusses His Streaming Music Service
by Chuck Joiner
December 14, 2005
Pandora is a cool new online streaming music service. What's interesting about that? Plenty. Pandora starts with what you like and refines the selctions based on your feedback, as well as recommending new music that meets your criteria, all in a simple, sleek interface. The founder of Pandora, Tim Westergren talks about why Pandora is a six-year overnight success, how they started as a way to find new music, where they want to take their intellegent music selection model and more
Listen to the podcast at macvoices.com
The Independent
The websites that aim to track down your kind of music
Bored with your favourite bands? Alexia Loundras logs on in search of a new playlist
Published: 02 December 2005
"Any sequence of sounds perceived as pleasing or harmonious" is one dictionary's definition of "music" - which immediately raises the question: perceived by whom? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, beautiful music is in the ear of the listener, and as long as music has been around, one man's meat has been another man's "turn down that bloody racket".
And that's before you factor in music as fashion statement, expression of deepest feelings and identity badge. There's no need to wear the artfully distressed denim of an indie fan or the sneer'n'safety pins of a punk rocker to tell the world who you are, because a stated preference for anyone from James Blunt to Kraftwerk says as much about you as your haircut, shoes and car combined.
Read the whole article at independent.co.uk
Time
The Most Amazing Inventions 2005
Listen Up!
WHETHER YOU'RE SEARCHING FOR THE NEXT BIG HIT OR CREATING A PERSONAL WEB RADIO STATION, OUR TOP 20 MUSIC SITES WILL GET YOU IN THE GROOVE
By WILSON ROTHMAN
Nov. 21, 2005
TUNED IN
PANDORA.COM Want to create your own streaming radio stations? Type in the name of a band you like, and this site begins playing its songs, as well as ones by other artists that Pandora determines to be similar. If you don't like a song, you can simply knock it off the playlist. Start multiple stations for your different moods. There's a 10-hour free trial before you're asked to pay for a $36 annual membership.
Read the whole article at time.com
Lo·quacious·ly Lola
The First Woman On Earth
by Lola
November 17, 2005
Remember when I said I had no clue what I planned on blogging about? Well by gosh I went and got me a clue, yes I did. I'm taking it upon myself to evoke the spirit of my hero, Oprah, and create my own little "favorite things" segment. (Am I going to get sued for copyright infringement?) Some days it will be music related, others it will be gadget related (ala Ms. Winfrey), and some days it might just be my new favorite cheese. Today's favorite thing is Pandora.
Read the whole article at itsmysteez.blogspot.com
Bright Meadow
When a man is wrestling a leopard in the middle of a pond, he is in no position to run
by Cas Buchanan
November 1, 2005
Mata, this morning, flagged a new service, Pandora, as one that is worth a play. It's a streaming radio-player with a difference - you put in a band/track you like, and it will automatically create playlists for you based on that. The people behind it have done it a little differently though. Rather than rely on genres, each individual song is analysed, catalogued, and the selections are based on things like influences, the key the music is in, the beat, vocal harmony, instruments used, and all sorts of other stuff I have no idea about.
Read the whole article at brightmeadow.blogsport.com
VentureBlog
Pandora and Persistence
By David Hornik
September 7, 2005
About a half dozen years ago I helped a friend of mine named Tim Westergren structure a new company he was forming called Savage Beast. Tim and I had been classmates at CCRMA, Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. Unlike me, however, Tim had stuck with music after graduation, playing in various bands and composing for a number of films (not surprising, frankly -- he was a way better musician than I was). But around 2000 Tim decided to combine his love of music and his appreciation for technology to create a better music discovery engine. Savage Beast was born.
Read the whole article at ventureblog.com
Scobleizer
Pandora Rocks Barcamp
by Robert Scoble
August 20, 2005
OK, I've been seeing lots of cool stuff this week. Silicon Valley's just rocking. Ajay's car and natural-language speech recognition car is the coolest (you should have seen the geek's reaction to it last night), but it is expensive and you won't be able to buy his software for at least a year.
Pandora, on the other hand, is here now (you need a beta invite) and is simply the coolest thing outside of Microsoft that I've seen in a long time.
Read the whole article at radio.weblogs.com/0001011/
TechCrunch
Dig into the Music Long Tail - Pandora
posted by Michael Arrington
August 20, 2005
Do you love music? Are you the kind of person who's pissed off because your iPod only holds 60 gigs? If you are, stop reading this, click over to Pandora and request an invitation to their private alpha right now. Then come back and read the rest of this post.
If you don't agree that this is the coolest application you've seen in a long while, re-read this post over and over until you agree, because you are wrong. I am in love with Pandora. It's like the Internet was invented so that Pandora could be.
Read the whole article at techcrunch.com
