PhoneTalk

Phone Smarts

Want good music on the go? Check out Pandora for cell phones

By Guest Blogger | Monday, May 19, 2008 (permalink)
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We asked Bloggers around the Internet about their thoughts on music services for cell phones. Check out Rick Frauton's take on Pandora. To read more from Rick, check out his FeedLion blog.

I am a big fan of Pandora.com's Music Genome Project. Pandora has gone to great lengths to analyze an enormous database of popular music by its 'genes.' In their own words:

"Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony."

I started listening to Pandora online several years ago. Their cost-free, commercial-free streaming music service allows users to provide feedback for each song played in the form of a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Over time the station that you created gains a better understanding of the music you like based on the feedback you provide. I must say, after years of using Pandora almost every day, my personal stations are astonishingly well tailored to my discriminating musical tastes. What's more, I have discovered several artists whom I may never have been exposed to elsewhere.

When Pandora announced that they had built a mobile application for streaming my custom stations on-the-go, I was really excited. I can now listen through my phone's built-in speakers, through my headphones, or even connect a cassette adapter and listen through my car stereo. I do all of these things practically every day. I already have an unlimited data plan on my phone (Samsung SPH-A920 on Sprint) so the only cost of the Pandora Mobile application would be the $2.99 monthly fee to run the mobile application. For me this small fee is well worth having Pandora on my phone. However, I should mention that Pandora's mobile solution would be less cost-effective for users who don't already subscribe to an unlimited data plan, which is required.

If there is a drawback to Pandora it's the fact that one cannot choose a specific song or artist to play on-demand. This is due to artist and record company royalty restrictions. Pandora could not legally be free if users were allowed to choose content on-demand. In that regard, Pandora is more of a traditional radio station than an on-demand music service. Of course there are times when I know exactly what I want to listen to, so I turn to MP3s or CDs. However, most of the time when I am working or socializing and I want good music playing in the background for hours at a time, I turn on Pandora.