Pandora Is Coming to Your Car
Net radio provider Pandora is preparing to move more aggressively into the automotive space, with deeper integration with car radios and controls on the horizon. During an early afternoon panel at the SF Music Tech Summit, chief technology officer Tom Conrad said the company’s mobile strategy will first hinge on a transitional phase in which its smartphone apps will be controlled from dashboard or steering-wheel interfaces, before dispensing with the smartphones altogether as the service is built into web-connected cars.
Already, Conrad said, half of Pandora’s mobile users are using their phones or iPod touches to enjoy Pandora’s service in their cars, typically by plugging the phone into an existing car stereo’s line-in jack. That’s not too appealing from a safety standpoint, he said, but the company is working with car makers –- including via an existing deal with Ford –- to build in-dash controls that will allow drivers to use Pandora without fumbling around with their phones. This “tethered handset” model will include physically secured mobile devices that are connected to the car’s sound system, possibly via Bluetooth or another technology.
Within a few years, new cars will have Pandora built in and “bundled with either the price of the car or services associated with the car,” he said, ramping up competition with subscription-based satellite radio providers as well as terrestrial radio broadcasters. While he wouldn’t commit to a time frame for the first implementations, and automotive innovation cycles are notoriously long, Conrad hinted that some relevant announcements could be coming out of next month’s CES event in Las Vegas.
Pandora has already succeeded in seamlessly moving from a desktop service to a mobile one, with smartphone adoption driving significant subscriber growth. Having cheated the hangman and stabilized its cost structure this summer, thanks to a licensing agreement forged after an arduous negotiation process, Pandora has the financial runway and the confidence to act on its mobile advantage and expand into the car radio market. After all, isn’t your car another mobile device you rely on?
neat. VERY NEAT
…does this mean i get my Tiesto station in my ride??
pandora wont be around in a year. :-(
I use Pandora on my iPhone in the car all the time. This seems like a logical step for their strategy. Their value is not in creating “apps”, but in having a platform that can accessed from a variety of “channels” to reach a much wider audience.
Our service called BuzzVoice has been likened to “Pandora for news & blogs” because it lets users listen to the web’s top blogs on the go(including GigaOM).
A lot of our users use it in the car, at the gym and on the train – and we’re considering similar channels for reaching consumers on the go.
This is interesting news. It would be a positive move by Pandora. Here in the UK, of course, we can no longer receive Pandora over the web/IP.
Mobile data is inevitably going metered. Unlimited data was a market anomaly for a few years. That really messes up streaming mobile media.
Pandora is genius. I love how it knows what I like. Having this for my car would be crazy! I hope to get this one day. Nothing else out there compares to what Pandora can do. I used to be a fan of Rhapsody. Man, those days are long gone.
I heard that Pandora struck a deal with Pioneer for this thing. How did that go?
FL Dodge
[...] Pandora is making moves to bring its streaming radio service inside cars. While Pandora first hopes to equip users with the ability to control the service through the dashboard of their car, while streaming through smart phones, the company eventually hopes to simply bundle Wi-Fi enabled cars with Pandora. The company is working with a variety of car makers to include Pandora in the dashboard controls, as almost 50% of currently mobile Pandora users are listening in the car via smart phone. [...]
[...] Pandora is making moves to bring its streaming radio service inside cars. While Pandora first hopes to equip users with the ability to control the service through the dashboard of their car, while streaming through smart phones, the company eventually hopes to simply bundle Wi-Fi enabled cars with Pandora. The company is working with a variety of car makers to include Pandora in the dashboard controls, as almost 50% of current mobile Pandora users are listening in the car via smart phone. [...]
[...] chief technology officer, Tom Conrad. Speaking at the SF Music Tech Summit, Conrad revealed that around half of Pandora’s current users are believed to be using DIY ways to play their music [...]
[...] chief technology officer, Tom Conrad. Speaking at the SF Music Tech Summit, Conrad revealed that around half of Pandora’s current users are believed to be using DIY ways to play their music [...]
[...] of us can access our streaming Internet radio favorites while on the go. That might be changing. As GigaOm reports, Pandora is preparing to aggressively target the automotive space. According to GigaOm, [...]
[...] of us can access our streaming Internet radio favorites while on the go. That might be changing. As GigaOm reports, Pandora is preparing to aggressively target the automotive space. According to GigaOm, [...]
[...] GigaOm is reporting that an announcement could be forthcoming at January’s CES event in Las Vegas. blog comments powered by Disqus var disqus_url = 'http://www.gregbussmann.com/pandora-coming-to-cars/ '; var disqus_container_id = 'disqus_thread'; var facebookXdReceiverPath = 'http://www.gregbussmann.com/wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system/xd_receiver.htm'; var DsqLocal = { 'trackbacks': [ ], 'trackback_url': 'http://www.gregbussmann.com/pandora-coming-to-cars/trackback/' }; [...]
[...] Pandora Is Coming to Your Car – GigaOM [...]
[...] to GigaOm, Tom Conrad, chief technology officer of Pandora, was speaking at a panel at the SF Music Tech [...]
[...] via Pandora Is Coming to Your Car – GigaOM [...]
[...] told GigaOM that newly manufactured cars will include Pandora which will either be included in the car’s [...]
[...] | GigaOM | Email this | Comments Rate this topic: (No Ratings Yet) Popularity: 0 [...]
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[...] Jump out of the stream and into my car (Pandora prepares to "move more aggressively into the automotive space, with deeper integration [...]
[...] the days of MacGyver-ing your phone to get Pandora in your car may soon be over. According to GigaOm, the internet radio provide is looking to make a dedicated leap towards cars. Cheif Technology [...]
[...] Pandora is part of that development project. Pandora’s CTO Tom Conrad recently spoke about Pandora’s in-car development plans, saying that Pandora is working with car makers, [...]
[...] Techcrunch reports Pandora registers 600k new users/week and half of them come from mobile devices. GigaOM reports Pandora is driving towards car radio integration. [...]
[...] such as the ability to plug in a 3G USB modem and turn Ford cars into Wi-Fi hotspots. Pandora has big plans to storm automobiles in the years ahead. The first step is to develop stereo systems that act as dashboards for [...]
[...] such as the ability to plug in a 3G USB modem and turn Ford cars into Wi-Fi hotspots. Pandora has big plans to storm automobiles in the years ahead. The first step is to develop stereo systems that act as dashboards for [...]
[...] such as the ability to plug in a 3G USB modem and turn Ford cars into Wi-Fi hotspots. Pandora has big plans to storm automobiles in the years ahead. The first step is to develop stereo systems that act as dashboards for [...]
[...] As to all the consumer devices that are embedding the service, Conrad said that “the high-volume products are only just hitting the market,” among them devices made by LG, Samsung, Sony, Sanyo, Haier, Divx, Toshiba and Panasonic. But the biggest boost, he said, was going to come from the embedding of Pandora in automobiles. Conrad hinted about such a move to autos back in early December. [...]
[...] do away with phone and apps completely while driving. That’s the model Pandora’s Tom Conrad described to me last fall, in advance of that company’s fruitful CES trade show in Las Vegas last [...]
[...] by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the launch of iPhone 4.0 OS. Phone companies and even Ford talks about it in reverential tones. In short, Pandora is [...]
[...] by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the launch of iPhone 4.0 OS. Phone companies and even Ford talks about it in reverential tones. In short, Pandora is [...]
[...] by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the launch of iPhone 4.0 OS. Phone companies and even Ford talks about it in reverential tones. In short, Pandora is [...]