GigaOM » Tom Conrad

Pandora releases Android app update with lyrics and social features

Janko Roettgers — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 04:04:50 +0000

Pandora updated its Android app with social sharing, song lyrics and other contextual information for music geeks on Thursday. The app update, which is now available on Google Play, brings a set of features to the platform that was rolled out on the iPhone last month. Pandora CTO Tom Conrad told me at the time that it was the company’s effort to add more information for users who want it while still staying true to “the essential simplicity of Pandora.”

Check out a few screenshots of the new app, or continue reading below:

The new Android app differs from iOS with a few design choices, including the placement of buttons, but the two apps essentially offer the same features. Many of these new features could soon make their way to the iPad, Conrad told me last month. A dedicated Android app is planned as well, but won’t be rolled out until after the iPad remake.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Meet RoadMap Book, exclusive for RoadMap attendees

Om Malik, Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:00:58 +0000

Because GigaOM’s second annual RoadMap conference is focused on design in the age of connectivity, we decided to do something entirely not connected (go figure) for all our RoadMap attendees this year: we designed and printed an old-fashioned book, which we’re exclusively giving to everyone at RoadMap.

Our RoadMap book contains 10 interviews and essays with some of the leading thinkers in web, mobile, product and device design, including Mike McCue CEO of Flipboard, Nest CEO Tony Fadell, designer Christian Lindholm, and the head of design for Parlay Labs, Scott Jenson.

Here’s our TOC:

The reinvention of the store for a connected world, interview with George Blankenship, Tesla Motors
10 rules for designing the future, essay by Christian Lindholm, designer, entrepreneur
Attention to detail: designing for new frontiers, interview with Hosain Rahman, Jawbone
Marching backwards into the future, essay by Scott Jenson, Parlay Labs
The magic of good design, interview with Tony Fadell, Nest Labs
Find the story in your product, images & photos, Oren Jacob, Bobby Podesta, ToyTalk
The call of beauty over data, interview with Mike McCue, Flipboard
The qualified self: online identity finally comes of age, essay by Edward Aten, Swift.fm
Using data to design for your ears, interview with Tom Conrad, Pandora
The rise of augmented intelligence and data mapping, essay by Sean Gourley, Quid

Down the road you’ll be able to buy an ebook version of our book from GigaOM Books, but the printed and bound version will only be available to attendees at the RoadMap event. RoadMap will kick off bright and early this coming Monday morning (November 5)! Yes, it is rapidly approaching. See our awesome speaker list here, and buy the few tickets remaining here.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

How to design for the ears

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:44:10 +0000

We do a lot of designing for your ears, explains Pandora’s CTO Tom Conrad. The Internet radio leader uses billions of data points — from their music genome project to their user’s interactions with the music — to design the experience of the perfect play list.

Conrad talked to us about designing for the ears in this video, as part of the book we’re creating for our RoadMap conference, which will take place on November 5th in San Francisco. RoadMap is focused on design in the age of connectedness and will feature speakers like fuseproject founder Yves Behar, Obvious CEO Evan Williams, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, Tumblr CEO David Karp, MINIMAL founder Scott Wilson, and many more. Check out the speaker lineup and schedule.

Watch this video for free on GigaOM

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Pandora now works on 600 different consumer devices

Om Malik — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 23:30:57 +0000

Pandora’s streaming music service now works on 600 consumer electronics devices, according to CEO Joe Kennedy, who spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference held earlier this month. He pointed out that in addition to mobile — Pandora is on half of the U.S. smartphones — his company is looking at cars as its next big opportunity, though it will have a slower uptake since people replace their cars very slowly – about seven years on an average.

Kennedy’s comments are in close sync with the Pandora Everywhere vision shared by company CTO Tom Conrad at our RoadMap conference last year. (By the way, we are hosting RoadMap this year again, with some great speakers.)

Here are excerpts from his comments summarized by Goldman Sachs in a research note:

Pandora has seen significant competition in the past from services that have failed to gain traction. More recent expansions into radio by on-demand music or digital download providers such as Spotify and Rdio have had no noticeable impact on Pandora’s growth. When asked about expanding to also provide on-demand or download options under the Pandora brand, Mr. Kennedy downplayed the consumer-paid model as a much smaller niche with more complicated licensing, and would rather focus on being the best in internet radio.

Kennedy stated that Pandora currently has local ad sales offices in the top 10 radio markets and plans to invest significantly and expand into many more markets once the 2H12 integration of Pandora inventory into local radio ad buying platforms is complete. Kennedy sees the process of buying Pandora ads becoming as easy as buying FM ads at the beginning of next year. Ideally a self-serve ad platform will be fully implemented in the future, but the company will initially accelerate the hiring of salespeople to help local advertisers overcome inertia.

The company is looking at US legislators to help its cause. Three politicians introduced a new legislation to help lower the royalty fees paid by Internet radio services such as Pandora.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Pandora: Now Playing Everywhere

Om Malik — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:00:51 +0000

Now that Pandora, a next-generation online music streaming service, has turned its first quarterly profit, the Oakland, Calif.-based company is looking at life beyond the web. And by doing so, Pandora is moving to embody what’s being called the device-agnostic Internet.

“We became profitable for the fourth quarter of 2009, and now we’re shooting for profits for the entire 2010 [period],” Pandora’s chief technology officer, Tom Conrad, told me. The 10-year-old company plans to reach that goal by embedding itself in all sorts of consumer electronics devices that feature an Internet connection. For now Pandora’s ambitions are restricted to within U.S. borders.

In 2009, Pandora’s U.S. audience of registered users reached 43 million and at present nearly 100 different consumer devices other than computers are streaming the service. In December 2009 alone, 3 million new listeners joined Pandora — of which 2.7 million of them activated the service on a device other than a computer, according to the company.

Pandora is a perfect showcase for the so-called device-agnostic Internet, itself the result of three major trends:

The marriage of computing and connectivity that can now take place without the shackles of being tethered to a single location. It’s among the biggest disruptive forces of modern times, one that will redefine business models for decades to come.
The pervasiveness of the mobile Internet.
The availability of low-cost, always-on computers (aka smartphones) that allow sophisticated software to conduct complex tasks on the go.

Pandora got a big boost at the recently concluded CES trade show, where it showed off the fact that its music offering, which combines radio-styled listening to serendipitous recommendations, is now being embedded in everything from thin LED televisions to Blu-ray players to digital frames. I’m among those who bought a Blu-ray player and subsequently signed up for my Pandora account online. I also listen to Pandora on a Sonos system as well and also on my iPod touch and on my BlackBerry. In other words, I see the value of taking my Pandora everywhere.

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.

Ford, Alpine and Pioneer are three companies that are going to be putting Pandora inside their cars and automobile music systems, respectively. The service will piggy-back on 3G wireless connections on the latest generation of cell phones. While Conrad was candid enough to admit that the automobile ecosystem was going to take a little bit of time, for the company, it’s clearly worth the wait. “Nearly 47 percent of radio listening is in the car,” he noted. (Related from GigaOM Pro, subscription req’d: The App Developer’s Guide to Working with Ford Sync and Forget Syncing, Let’s Put Music in the Cloud.)

As Conrad explained, currently the web accounts for 20 percent of total radio listening, which means that Pandora needs to expand beyond just the browser if it wants to go after “80 percent of the opportunity.” I find it amusing that only a couple of years ago, Pandora was fighting for its life, thanks to the draconian policies of the music industry. Now it is audaciously viewing itself as the future of radio. Terrestrial and satellite radio providers had better watch out. (Related: Pandora Raises $35 million.)

In the meantime, Pandora has benefited handsomely from the iPhone phenomenon. In just 18 months, mobile (and other connected devices) have risen to account for nearly 30 percent of Pandora’s usage. That’s helped the company offer premium services, which has in turn helped it generate revenues and lately, profits.

No wonder Conrad and the rest of the Pandora team are thinking about Pandora playing everywhere.

This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.