Pandora is one of the oldest music streaming services. Before Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube Music, or Amazon Music, there was Pandora. Still active today, it continues to attract millions of users. And, of course, the service is compatible with Soundiiz. You’ll probably wonder how to transfer Pandora playlists to other streaming services, like those millions of people.
We explain how to do all this while giving you a quick history of this platform.
Dig in!
The origins
The Pandora story officially began in 2005. That’s five years before Spotify. Streaming music had not yet been democratized. Although it operates differently from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Deezer, Pandora has paved the way for many others.
Pandora emerged from Tim Westergren‘s mind, then a Stanford University student. After graduating, he worked as a producer and composer for almost twenty years. He focused on discovering emerging talent that slipped under the radar of major labels. Tim struggled a bit, working a series of odd jobs without finding financial stability. One thing bothers him: he’s met dozens of talented artists who needed more means to get their music out there. He had to change that.
In 1999, he founded Pandora Media with Will Glaser and Jon Kraft. The basis of their project was the desire to classify music according to predefined characteristics to offer Pandora users a personalized listening experience.
Emergence and difficulties
The concept is simple: Pandora functions as a kind of radio station. Its users can listen to existing radio stations created by other members, and – this is the most exciting aspect and the strength of the service – radio stations are built and personalized by the user himself.
Only some things went according to plan: fund-raising was insufficient, and between 2000 and 2005, financial difficulties plagued the company and its ability to pay its employees. After a change of CEO and a new round of fund-raising, Pandora officially launched in September 2005, in both a paid and a free version, with advertising.
Pandora is available in only a few countries. In France, for example, it has never been made downloadable. It may have slowed its progress, and while Pandora is now rightly considered one of the pioneers of streaming, it remains relatively unknown outside North America.
Between 2011 and 2019, users will grow significantly, but Pandora is being overtaken by competitors, taking some of its concepts and making them more accessible. Many experts thought the service was doomed to die out, yet Pandora is still very much alive. In 2019, Sirius XM Holdings, the US leader in subscription radio, bought Pandora for $3.5 billion.
To this day, Pandora remains true to what its co-founders had in mind when they launched the service: to enable the discovery of undiscovered talent. Almost any song is available on Pandora, and all can be added to personalized radios.
But how does Pandora work? Thanks to a tool developed especially for Pandora: the Music Genome Project.
The power of the algorithm and Pandora playlists
At the heart of Pandora lies a concept: the Music Genome Project. It is a meticulous study initiated by Tim Westergren to define the specific characteristics of each song. A team of technicians and musicians spends several dozen minutes dissecting a piece of music, adding features to a library. One extremely well-known work and another almost unknown may share many similarities. The Music Genome Project detects this and thus discovers these songs that have gone under the radar.
EasyTechJunkie describes the project as follows: “The music genome project is a colossal effort to classify songs by using over 400 “genetic markers” that, applied to a song and taken together, help to create a kind of taxonomy of music. The genetic markers include everything from basic attributes, such as whether a song is acoustic or electronic, to subtle qualities of the lead singer’s voice and all aspects of the arrangement — right down to whether or not hand claps are in the mix. Dissonant harmonies, guitar effects, specific use of drums and cymbals, syncopation, orchestral music, and even subtle influences become part of the song’s DNA map“.
The best algorithm?
It is the basis of everything Pandora has built up. Using this “Music Genome,” users are guaranteed to listen to radio as closely as possible to their desires. They can discover many new artists and albums corresponding to their entered parameters. Everything can then be configured and modified, and up to a hundred different radios can be created.
Even today, despite the arrival of Spotify, whose algorithm is considered the most efficient on the market, some observers claim that no streaming platform rivals Pandora in creating personalized playlists.
Thanks to the Music Genome Project, Pandora has enabled an insane number of listeners to create personalized playlists. You’ll probably wonder how to transfer Pandora playlists to other streaming services. With Soundiiz, you can! And very easy.
How to transfer Pandora playlists using Soundiiz?
We’d almost go so far as to say that Pandora is the epitome of a streaming service that reveals its full potential when coupled with Soundiiz. The reason? Pandora creates personalized, never-before-seen playlists that, in theory, you can’t find anywhere else until Soundiiz comes on the scene.
Thanks to our Transfer function, you can transfer all Pandora-generated playlists directly to your Soundiiz account. You can then manage, organize, and update them. You can move from Pandora to Spotify, Pandora to Apple Music, Pandora to Deezer, Pandora to YouTube Music, or Pandora to Amazon Music (and others) in just a few minutes. Practical.
Soundiiz and Pandora work hand in hand to enhance your listening experience. Soundiiz, a 100% legal tool that doesn’t download any data, complements Pandora and all other streaming platforms.
Another exciting feature is that you can synchronize any Pandora playlists you like to your Soundiiz account to retrieve all the updates made to your favorite Pandora playlists at a rate and frequency you define.
So, if you live in North America, don’t hesitate to create a Pandora account and make the most of it with Soundiiz!
