Web and Mobile Application “PANDORA”

Glenn Davis

CIS/207

23 April 2014
Instructor: Brenda Holland

Web and Mobile Application “PANDORA”

In the last 10 years there has been several advancements in the

way we listen to music and access it through the vast many upgrades in

technology. My Web and Application icon I chose to do my paper on is the

Application called “Pandora”. Pandora was founded in 2000 close to the era

when NAPSTER was pretty much fading out and there was a big in surge of

Satellite Radio companies such as “XM and Sirius starting to develop. XM and

Sirus started utilizing internet technology back then along with their primary

means of medium which was car stereos and portable devices before the mobile

application started to boom later in the years. That’s where PANDORA really

started to capitalize and mark there territory early in the mobile market as

other apps began to follow. I personally didn’t discover Pandora until I got

my first Iphone 3rd generation back in 2007.

Pandora started up as a Web application capitalizing off of web

advertising and based its sales market early in the game with the starting

new trend of offering a wide range of music with many (GENRE’s)- Musical

preferences to the users with a wide selection of formats. Pandora built up

their servers to accommodate that massive share of music became a big task for

PANDORA engineers in the beginning, but they quickly expanding to a new

progressing market with their central locations were Houston Texas, and New

York City. Pandora in the last 5 years have since expanded globally to

Australia and New Zealand.

Pandora music service can be accessed by either your web browser

by typing in www.pandora.com and logging in and creating a (free) or (paid)

account or through any mobile device whether its Android or Apple. If you

choose to stream the application for free, you will get to utilize its many

features such as adding artist and creating your own personal stations and

with the web base application you get a few choices of back ground skin

choices for your viewing pleasure.

Some of the drawbacks of the free service is that you get

bombarded by advertisements and a limit of how many stations you can create.

Another annoying fact is how many (skips) – chances you get to

change to the next song if the one they are playing is not in your liking.

With the paid version, you know have more control over your account by being

able to add more artist and genre’s and more skips allowed per song input. You

also get a more customized view and set up with your web account, and the best

thing is no advertisements.

With the expansion of technology in just the last 3 years you have

now seen applications like Pandora move from just being web based to mobile

apps to now auto makers placing this application into features in their

vehicles. You can access it through a (SIMM CARD) – which is a new mobile

connection technology now being placed in most new vehicles. This of course

is killing the XM/SIRIUS market now, as we see how the turning trends change.

I can remember listening to 8-tracks in cars, then Cassette tapes

then moving up to CD’s and DVD Audio, and the insertion of Satellite Radio and

HD Radio. Then MP3’s hard drives and input devices became mobile in cars now

web based application such as Pandora and IHEART radio are starting to become

the norm and regular choice of medium of choice of the next generation. Did I

even mention RADION BROADCAST? Honestly I don’t even listen to radio anymore

in my vehicle. I recall going on a date a few years back in a new car that I

purchased and my date asked can we listen to the radio?, And I replied, I

don’t even know how to turn it on! According to Wikipedia and BING, Pandora

now has 54.9 million user worldwide since 2012 and is still expanding.

In my closing remarks we can see how a generation is constantly changing

and how with the advances in technology who knows what upcoming new trend will

develop in the next few years that will fade out the existing few icons we

cherish in our error. I believe the intervention of PANDORA has only sparked

the beginning of how we will be able to retrieve and enjoy our music and

access our entertainment on mobile devices as well as in our office spaces.

But for now it is my personal primary choice of music source as I utilize the

service not only on my smartphone, and computer, but now they have even

incorporated it into smart-tv’s. The saga will only continue to expand and

grow into the next generation of technology.

References 1. WWW.PANDORA.COM. 2. WWW.FORD.COM/WWW.GM.COM/WWW.VOLVO.COM 3. WWW.SAMSUNG.COM. 4. WWW.WIKEPEDIA.COM/WWW.BING.COM 5. University of Phoenix EBOOK COLLECTION: Technology Guide 2. “Mobile Applications