AfterDawn: Tech news

Pandora announces redesign, 100 millionth user

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 12 Jul 2011 2:12 User comments (8)

Pandora announces redesign, 100 millionth user Pandora has announced today that the streaming music service has reached 100 million users, with 36 million being active monthly.
Additionally, the company has completely revamped their design, including the desktop and mobile versions of the site, and the redesign will go live in the very near future.

You can view some pics of the new design (and functionality) here.

Says CTO Tim Conrad:

I’ve been looking at it for seven years. I was ready to give it a fresh coat of paint. We started on it about a year ago. But even earlier than that, we’d been talking about it. There were core navigation problems that needed fixing. At first, we had been talking about more incremental changes, with the site still operating in Flash. But then last summer, it became clear that browsers with full HTML5 capabilities had gained enough support. We realized we could do the full Pandora experience without Flash.




Pandora recently went public, raising over $100 million and now has a market value of $3 billion.

The company says it now has 3.6 percent of the U.S. radio listening market share, a 50 percent increase from last year.

Tags: Pandora
Previous Next  

8 user comments

112.7.2011 22:11

Don't know for sure if the facelift is the real answer, but hey I'm game to check it out it when it's ready.

213.7.2011 04:32

I highly doubt a facelift is going to fix anything...they need to fix their song selector. When I type a band it finds something close and starts playing, but then the next song is radically out of place (it went from Children of Bodom to Britany Spears once). Since they only let you skip 10 bad tracks, the result is that you can only listen to a handful of songs in a session...sometimes only the first song.

313.7.2011 13:20

To be fair I have noticed that the longer I use it and the more diligent I am at letting it know the songs I like/don't like the better it gets at playing what I want to hear. Yeah it's not 100% but then as I pay nothing for it I sure can't complain...

414.7.2011 21:50

I've got several playlists with pandora. Free account. The key to hearing the songs that fit is to thumbs up or thumbs down the songs.I've got about 10 playlists total, and 3 of them I've tweaked so much that I know and like every song it plays. I'll admit I really like Pandora and think they do a really good job, and hope that they stay free. More then likely I'll end up paying for it though

515.7.2011 08:25

Originally posted by KillerBug:
I highly doubt a facelift is going to fix anything...they need to fix their song selector. When I type a band it finds something close and starts playing, but then the next song is radically out of place (it went from Children of Bodom to Britany Spears once). Since they only let you skip 10 bad tracks, the result is that you can only listen to a handful of songs in a session...sometimes only the first song.

That first song pisses me off as well but they are trying to get a fix on what you like. They know you liked the song you picked. I think their selection algorithym is in a class by itsself. I would prefer if they played that first, why not? You have to put your imput in if the selection engine is going to work well. It is one of the only places I can find new artists that I like. I give Pandora 2 thumbs up!

A face lift to a radio station is stupid unless they allow for easy picking of thumbs up tunes you have not heard. That might even please Killerbug. Do they really think I play their music and watch their screen????????????? Morons!

615.7.2011 16:50

I can't say the face lift does anything for me. I use the thumbs to rate but one problem with their system is you can't reverse a fat thumb, no pun intended. LOL I have several play lists and they all work well for me I really like the service over all. I also wish you could use thumbs on songs that have already finished playing as I don't always catch it in time.

716.7.2011 06:14

I have to say that I really like the Pandora service, and have found the $36/year worth every penny. I have multiple music sources for my car system (hd radio, xm, iPod, cd, Pandora via Bluetooth), and found the Pandora stream to be of very high quality. The dynamic range is comparable to the cd, hd, and iPod (when playing a .wave format file, as opposed to playing crappy mp3). The only thing wonky about it is sometimes the song will abruptly end, but this happens only when I'm moving, so it could probably be attributed to cell tower switching.

816.7.2011 06:14

I have to say that I really like the Pandora service, and have found the $36/year worth every penny. I have multiple music sources for my car system (hd radio, xm, iPod, cd, Pandora via Bluetooth), and found the Pandora stream to be of very high quality. The dynamic range is comparable to the cd, hd, and iPod (when playing a .wave format file, as opposed to playing crappy mp3). The only thing wonky about it is sometimes the song will abruptly end, but this happens only when I'm moving, so it could probably be attributed to cell tower switching.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

VLC hits milestone: over 5 billion downloads VLC hits milestone: over 5 billion downloads (16 Mar 2024 4:31)
VLC Media Player, the versatile video-software powerhouse, has achieved a remarkable feat: it has been downloaded over 5 billion times.
2 user comments
Sideloading apps to Android gets easier, as Google settles its lawsuit Sideloading apps to Android gets easier, as Google settles its lawsuit (19 Dec 2023 11:09)
Google settled its lawsuit in September 2023, and one of the settlement terms was that the way applications are installed on Android from outside the Google Play Store must become simpler. In the future, installing APK files will be easier.
8 user comments
Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments

News archive