Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Not Just A Flash In The Pan(dora)

On August 29th the music-streaming site Pandora will turn 5, which is quite the achievement in Internet years. It was launched when YouTube was only six months old, a year before Twitter even hit the market, and way before Facebook was anywhere near the online juggernaut it is today.

Pandora has been one of the quieter online success stories over the years. Despite little press coverage, the site has not only seen near-steady growth in 2010 but has become a cultural icon and one of the first things people think of when they think of online music.

Pandora's format hasn't really gone under any drastic changes over the years other than offering premium paid services. However, they recently announced the launch of genre-based stations that would focus on a wider range of music instead of a band or song.

Is this a game-changing innovation? Probably not, but with more and more music-streaming sites popping up, it's important that existing sites continue to innovate.