A Sea Of Red

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Pandora is one of the nation's most popular Web radio services, with about 1 million listeners daily. Its Music Genome Project allows customers to create stations tailored to their own tastes. It is one of the 10 most popular applications for Apple's iPhone and attracts 40,000 new customers a day.

Yet the burgeoning company may be on the verge of collapse, according to its founder, and so may be others like it.

"We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," said Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora. "This is like a last stand for webcasting."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03367.html

Once again, the recording industry screws over the customer yet again...truly saddening news. i discovered so many new bands using pandora that I likely never would have discovered by other means. Guess i'll just ahve to move on to some vastly inferior website like last.fm when Pandora shuts down. Anyone else know any other alternatives other than last.fm and finetune (which is good in concept but the website doesnt work well at all)?

no kidding I just came across a new artist that I love on Pandora...thats sad news no doubt

Pandora is the best thing to happen to online music since iTunes.

SuperJon wrote:Pandora is the best thing to happen to online music.

FTFY

I was gonna say since Napster. That's really what I think. I've never used iTunes but iTunes revolutionized online music.

i've been trying out last.fm some since I heard this news. yeah that site has nothing on pandora. you can create a library of music to play like on pandora, but it doesn't mix in stuff that is similar like pandora does. the imminent shut down of pandora is a travesty to the world, there's just nothing out there that I can find that can even come close to replacing what pandora does. hopefully more advertisers jump on with pandora to save it. the article mentions about possibly having ads between songs once in a while, hopefully that will help. i'll gladly take an add here in there if it will keep pandora alive.

SuperJon wrote:I was gonna say since Napster. That's really what I think. I've never used iTunes but iTunes revolutionized online music.

good point. napster should sit on top of the list and iTunes second. only changed your post because I think pandora is better than iTunes and the old napster. sure they are both good for getting stuff you already know, but it's useless for discovering new stuff, especially iTunes since it costs money. I basically only use iTunes to download apps for my iPod Touch and to sync my iPod. If I download music (legally that is) I normally do it on Amazon.com mp3 since the songs are actually mp3s and don't have DRM on them. also I think amazon may be cheaper, but it would only be a few pennies in most cases.

i love pandora. I did use it at work a lot before I figured out how to get talk radio on the computer. but it is great for finding new artists. the music industry is killing itself

JDUB wrote:i love pandora. I did use it at work a lot before I figured out how to get talk radio on the computer. but it is great for finding new artists. the music industry is killing itself

yes, yes it is. i discovered a bunch of bands through pandora that has led me to purchase their music. had it not been for pandora, i likely would have never heard of them. oh well, i guess the music industry would rather screw over the customer instead of help the musicians.

Well at least now I won't have a reason to complain about my employer blocking access to Pandora.

I personally dont think Pandora is going to go anywhere anytime soon...I think this was a PR ploy to make the public aware of what's going on so hopefully something can change...but they'll do things like he mentioned: "this half hour was brought to you by..." and that should make up the rest he was lacking with a few more things. Pandora's numbers are crazy and you could see him partner with the music industry similar to what Napster did simply b/c their numbers were outrageous

Hold My Own wrote:I personally dont think Pandora is going to go anywhere anytime soon...I think this was a PR ploy to make the public aware of what's going on so hopefully something can change...but they'll do things like he mentioned: "this half hour was brought to you by..." and that should make up the rest he was lacking with a few more things. Pandora's numbers are crazy and you could see him partner with the music industry similar to what Napster did simply b/c their numbers were outrageous

if they end up partnering with the music industry and the users end up having to pay for the stuff (ala Napster), pandora will be as worthless as napster is now.

flamesbball84 wrote:

Hold My Own wrote:I personally dont think Pandora is going to go anywhere anytime soon...I think this was a PR ploy to make the public aware of what's going on so hopefully something can change...but they'll do things like he mentioned: "this half hour was brought to you by..." and that should make up the rest he was lacking with a few more things. Pandora's numbers are crazy and you could see him partner with the music industry similar to what Napster did simply b/c their numbers were outrageous

if they end up partnering with the music industry and the users end up having to pay for the stuff (ala Napster), pandora will be as worthless as napster is now.

Exactly. I love Pandora (even thought I have kinda forgotten about it and haven't used it in a while) and started using it about 2 1/2 years ago. I found quite a few bands that I really liked through their system. I would never have used it if it were a pay site. With access to free media why pay for it. Granted Pandora is far and away the best that I've found but it's still not worth me paying a subscription for it.

i found the saw doctors using pandora and i am forever indebted to that website...

RubberMallet wrote:i found the saw doctors using pandora and i am forever indebted to that website...

same here, except i discovered the entire post rock genre. it [pandora] revolutionized my musical interests.