Pandora Radio

Pandora is made possible by the Music Genome Project--the most inclusive and sophisticated taxonomy of musical information.  Pandora is a very interactive and integrative website with the main purpose of an internet radio service.  However, it is highly unlike the original radio that we are used to listening to in the car.  Pandora personalizes stations for each individual user based on what the user likes.  The single mission of this website is to play only music the user will love.  A user is able to create up to 100 unique stations--each can be refined through different applications until the user is content.

Pandora does not only play music but it provides a vast amount of information about the artists, songs, and genres. It provides lyrics to the songs, a list of similar artists to who the user is currently listening, information about upcoming music festivals, and more.  For the free version of Pandora, audio ads are played in order to help pay for bills.  Ads displayed on Pandora change and are chosen accordingly to target specific users.

According to McLuhan, "the medium is the message." This means that the message is the different ways an individual or a society is impacted by the type of medium used; the message is the "change of scale or pace or pattern."  McLuhan argues that the medium is more important than content because the medium is what affects human interaction and behavior in a society.  Therefore, Pandora Radio is the medium.  The content is the music (radio stations, songs, artists) and information about the music.  And most importantly, the message is an increase in music awareness to all users, promotion (and discovery) of specific artists and bands, a decrease in demand for buying or downloading music, and less use of regular AM/FM radio.