What is Pandora Radio? Create Own Radio!

What is Pandora Radio? Creating Your Own Radio with Pandora Radio
Have you ever heard of Pandora Radio? No? Well, now you have, and now that you have, you’re about to begin the wonderful journey to create your own radio. Pandora radio will only play the kind of music that you love. Even better, you can create as many different music stations as you like. For instance, you might like a station that plays snooze music when you’re feeling laid back, but when you’re buzzing, you might want to listen to rock and roll. The trick to creating your own music on Pandora Station is to experiment a bit and find out which 'keywords' are going to bring up your own type of music.

How to Sign Up for your Free Pandora Account.
In order to begin, go to Pandora Radio and sign up for an account. Complete your profile, take a quick walk through the site. You will see that you can make friends on Pandora as it has now expanded to include social networking. You can also follow others. However, as you're at Pandora Internet Radio to create your own radio, you probably want to get started!

On the top left - above the menu on the left - you will see, the words, 'new station.' Type in either the name of the artist you like to listen to, or the type of music you like to listen to. A list of what you may be looking for comes up. Select one of them. Pandora radio will not play the song you selected, but something similar. So, in order to get the one you want, don't click on the one you want. Click something similar to the one you want. (It took me a while to figure this out.)

Also, don't insert the name of someone who sings in a variety of styles. If you like Elvis Presley, you will get every conceivable type of artist who even remotely sung the same kind of songs as Elvis. Plus you will get the occasional Elvis. On the other hand, if you put in the name of Little Richard - as I did - you will then get rockabilly music which Elvis did a lot of. You have the choice of adding an artist, song, or composer.

Example of Pandora Internet Radio
I have just typed the word, 'Blue Danube' into the Pandora 'New Station' box. It is probably my most favorite piece of music on all the earth. And I've got it right! Pandora Radio is playing a remarkably similar piece of music. I could dance as nifty a Viennese waltz to it as I could to the Blue Danube. It's that simple! If, however, you didn't like the music that was brought up (it happens), then look at the menu options on the side and you will see the word, 'options.' One of the options is to delete the station. Do that, and start the process again. Some other options are also to share or to rename the station.

What is Pandora Radio: Your Obligation to Listen to Some Music
Pandora Internet Radio has received permission to play a lot of music by presenting new music you have never heard of - in the style that you like. You have the option of clicking on 'don't like' and it will move on to the next song. However, as a result of the licensing issues involved, if you say you don’t like too many songs, you will eventually get a message that tells you that in terms of their license, that you can only eliminate so many songs, and you will either have to fast forward it, or listen to it. Take your pick! The way to avoid that situation is to play around with the type of songs you like. It becomes difficult, for instance, if you are not a country and music fan, but there is one song that you really like. It will be virtually impossible to get that one song without listening to a whole lot of stuff you don't like.

If you go to the small print at the bottom, you will see a button that says, "Genre.' If you click on this, Pandora Radio will take you to page that gives you all the different music genres plus the Pandora top stations in those music genres. Pandora Internet Radio also gives you the option to click on those radios to play music from them.

What is Pandora Radio: Making New Friends on Pandora Radio
Music draws people together! So if you really love some music, click on it, and it will take you to another page. There you will see photos of other members who love the same music. You can click on them and make friends with them. (So this is how you meet the new love of your life).

What is Pandora Radio: Pandora Internet Radio History
Pandora Internet Radio will either play the song that you have selected or songs that are similar to the one you have just selected. So, if you chose a dozen songs, the music that Pandora will play will be similar. Occasionally, about once every ten or fifteen minutes, there’s a very short advertisement that runs for all of three or four seconds. You can’t get much better than that. If the radio station selects a song that you don’t’ like, you can either click a button that says you don’t like that song and it will remove it. In addition, Pandora Radio gives you the name of the music that you are listening to, plus details about the artist and composer. Next to this information are two buttons - you can chose to share the music or buy the music. Naturally you don't have to do either.

Pandora had collected 10 million listeners by 2008 and decided to allow the application to go mobile. In a little under two years, they had had amassed 50 million sign-ups as people everywhere designed their own radio music and could listen to it whenever they wished. It’s also possible to download Pandora to your desktop by clicking on download. Pandora Radio has continued to expand and by the time it went public, it had 80 million sign ups with over 30 million people listening at any given time.

What is Pandora Radio: Upgrade
At one point, the radio would only play 40 hours music free per month, and then you had to pay. However, in September 2011, the service became entirely free, the only difference being ads if you didn't pay and no ads if you did pay a monthly free. Well, you can also choose another skin, have a better quality audio radio, and a few other options. The fee for the year is $36.00. That's a pretty impressive radio service for a very small amount of money!

What is Pandora Radio: Technology
Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project which was started in 1999 by Will Glaser and Tim Westergren. Using the DNA of music (each type of music has its own unique style), they were able to develop markers for each type, and this enables listeners to select one song, and for Pandora to associate that song with other songs that the listen will love. It has been a tremendous success.