The personalized online radio site Pandora launched a bunch of new features today to help people keep track of what their friends are listening to and help people discover new music in new ways. The new features, called "Pandora Extra," show up in a tabbed interface below the usual listening window.
Here's a description of what each tab does (click image to expand):
Now Playing
Click this tab, and you'll see a bio for whatever band is playing; a previewable tracklist of the album it comes from that lets you bookmark or purchase albums from iTunes or Amazon for later listening; a list of the emotional attributes Pandora employees tagged the song with; and a list of other fans of the song.
Friends
Here, you can add any of your friend's email addresses manually or byporting friends directly from your webmail account. If they usePandora, you'll see them listed there; you can apparently send themmessages and see what they've bookmarked.
Genre Stations
Pandora made its name by allowing people to create their own stations centered around a particular artist. While those stations expose you to music you haven't heard before, these subgenre stations let you take the plunge into musical areas in which you have little or no experience.
Pandora Presents
Under this tab, you'll find original audio and video programming from Pandora. As of today, that programming includes video tours of a few of of America's best musical venues, and lots of musical explainers featuring experts explaining music theory fundamentals and various subgenres.
There's more to come, according to Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. "What's most exciting about this for me is that it represents the beginning of a much larger vision for our product and company. This design will allow us to add literally dozens of new options to compliment listening in an integrated way - all towards the goal of a unified music experience."
Hopefully, Pandora's new features mean Westergren expects his service to be around for a long time, although Congress has yet to do anything substantial about the new online radio royalty rates put into place by the Copyright Royalty Board earlier this year.
