At one time, all of your favorite music was unknown to you. Then came that epochal moment of discovery when the music struck chords within you, and the sound resonated through to your core. It was for that moment that Pandora Internet radio was created.
Genome-based structure introduces users to more music they like and gives personal veto power
By Dan Sankey
Published: August, 2006
At one time, all of your favorite music was unknown to you. Then came that epochal moment of discovery when the music struck chords within you, and the sound resonated through to your core. It was for that moment that Pandora Internet radio was created.
Pandora streams music based on a user typing in a suggestion, be it a band or song title, and from this starting point, leads to the discovery of new music.
This interactive website started as the Music Genome Project, which is a process of breaking music down to its musical DNA comprised of over 400 attributes regardless of genre. The Genome become Pandora after a bit of trial and error in realizing what the process was good for — helping people find more music they like.
Discovering music is a religious experience, said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, at a town hall-style meeting at the Yerba Buena Gardens Zeum Theater on July 25. This past spring he has been traveling around the country discussing the site and the future of music, and conducting meetings to get feedback and suggestions for the direction of the website.
An enthusiastic capacity crowd of over 200 came out to meet the people behind Pandora. Internet music nerds appear to be more diverse lot than one would expect, with gray hair mingling with pink and black hair and an equal number of females and males. The group of Web developers, musicians, record label workers and record junkies quipped and questioned Westergren with concerns about the process and intentions of the project.
Westergren is adamant that his goal is purely to introduce new music and budding bands to listeners who may have become disconnected from new music because of their age and their busy lives. But with the recent addition of more banner ads to the seven-month-old free service, many at the event questioned the authenticity of Pandora.
You can try and save the world, but at some point this business comes down to money, said Daria Kelly, an employee of Oakland hip-hop record label Hieroglyphics. Where’s the money coming from? I’ve bought banner ads and they don’t bring in that much money.
We’re not going to slot music because someone is paying us — never, ever, Westergren responded. You’ll never hear a song unless it’s relevant by the Genome.
Interactivity is Pandora’s main advantage to the popularity ratings- based programming of traditional radio. A listener shapes his or her own radio stations and advertising is a passive backdrop in the experience.
The Genome doesn’t require any level of popularity to make a band be played, Westergren said. Song selection is based on similarities in a song’s structure and sound initially, and is then refined by a simple thumbs up or down by the listener. Occasionally Pandora may ask a listener to give an email as to why they gave a thumb down to help improve the process. His favorite response to the query — Come on man, it’s Journey.
The system has a human element as its foundation. All of the songs on Pandora are analyzed by a group of 42 musicians to determine the song’s Genome attributes. And Westergren’s past as a musician has made him aware of music’s intangible appeal and of the need for musicians to make a better living. When he founded Pandora he was a musician struggling to get his band heard. I know firsthand what it feels like to be a needle in the haystack (of the music industry), he said.
By getting the listener to the musicians without the costs of the traditional record industry, he hopes to bring more money to the creators. As many in the audience would attest to, this is an idealistic goal, but the momentum of Pandora’s growth to 2.5 million users in seven months lends to its substance.
