Pandora Radio

Pandora is an Internet radio and the result of the Music Genome Project, which is the musical analysis has prescribed. For licensing reasons, Pandora may be used only within the United States, Australia and New Zealand, access from outside intruders are blocked. In April 2010, the channel had 50 million members. According to a U.S. study, it is with a share of 28% of Internet users over 12 years, the most popular internet radio.

In the database, over 500,000 titles (as of February 2009) are stored, sorted by 400 attributes.

Origin

Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project, which was founded on January 6, 2000 by Tim Westergren. Westergren sat assign different attributes with professional and amateur musicians, trying pieces of music. Within five years Title of 10,000 performers were examined in this way.

The Music Genome Project name is derived from the Human Genome Project, whose aim was to sequence the human genome.

Operation

The user first inputs the title of a song or an artist's name. Is it included in the title database, musically similar tracks are sought and recorded as a radio program. The listener specified his musical tastes by having songs that are set before him, indicating whether they liked it or not. The player window refers directly to Amazon and the iTunes Store, where the albums that contain the pieces that can be purchased.

It is not possible to rewind individual songs or to repeat it. Per hour you can use six times the " skip song " function only; restart Pandora bypasses this, however. You may be able to play any particular artist or band, but is dependent on the random selection by Pandora.

The page displays its contents on the proprietary Flash player that plays the music. There are also a number of stand-alone players.

For licensing reasons, 2007 Hits from outside the U.S. are identified by IP address and blocked accordingly since 3 May, British users are granted until 15 January 2008 access. The previously stored data to scale radio stations and musical preferences are retained so that at a later time, if the license allows, may be permitted access to already created profiles again.

IPO

The company, which had never made ​​profits, ended on June 15, 2011 to the stock market. The issue price of the stock was $ 16, rose on the Issue Date up to 26 USD, fell the next day and was quoted two days below the issue price.

In 2013, Pandora had a turnover of 637 million U.S. dollars. By advertising were about 512, occupied by subscription services $ 116 million. Overall, however, the online radio generated further losses, which were this year at 40 million.