Pandora Radio History

Pandora Radio is an automated music recommendation service and custodian of the Music Genome Project available only in the United States. The service plays musical selections similar to song suggestions entered by a user. The user provides positive or negative feedback for songs chosen by the service, which are taken into account for future selections.

While listening, users are offered the ability to buy the songs or albums at various online retailers. Over 400 different musical attributes are considered when selecting the next song. These 400 attributes are combined into larger groups called focus traits. There are 2,000 focus traits. Examples of these are rhythm syncopation, key tonality, vocal harmonies, and displayed instrumental proficiency.

The Pandora media player is based on OpenLaszlo. Pandora can also be accessed through many stand-alone players, such as the Roku DVP (formerly Netflix player) Reciva-based radios (from companies like Grace Digital, Sanyo, and Sangean), Frontier Silicon-based connected audio systems, Slim Devices, and Sonos product(s). On July 11, 2008, Pandora launched a mobile version of their software for the Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch through the iTunes App Store. Pandora is also available for Android phones, BlackBerry platforms, HP webOS(used on the Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Palm Pre 2, and HP Veer), and Windows Mobile devices. Pandora was the provider for MSN Radio until MSN discontinued their internet radio service on June 18, 2008. A modified version of Pandora has been made available for Sprint Nextel.

The service has two subscription plans: a free subscription supported by advertisements, and a fee-based subscription without ads. There are also advertisements in Pandora Mobile for mobile phones and the Pandora in The Home computer appliance. Most users choose the free subscription. As of IPO, Pandora had 80,000 artists, 800,000 tracks in its library and 80 million users.

In May 2010, Pandora was named in Lead411's 2010 Hottest San Francisco Companies list.In January 2011, Pandora met with bankers to consider a possible $100 million IPO. The company filed with the SEC for a $100mm IPO on February 11, 2011 and officially began trading on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol "P" on June 15, 2011 at a price of $16/share. This gave them a valuation of nearly $2.6 billion.

During its 2011 fiscal year, Pandora reported $138 million in revenue with a $1.8 million net loss, excluding the cost of a special dividend associated with the IPO.