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I envy Pandora, the wildly popular web radio service. 50 million people have tried their service so its undeniably consumer enticing. While MP3tunes is a different business, one of personal music lockers, I think there's much to learn from their service about how we (or any company) can improve. I examined Pandora recently and here's some improvements we're making based on emulating Pandora.
Faster TTM (time to music)
When you visit Pandora.com it immediately starts blasting songs at you. Sure there are options to create new stations or browse existing stations but while you're pondering these options, Pandora makes a music selection for you and music flows automatically. With your MP3tunes music locker we have a myriad of ways to explore your music (playlists, artists, songs, search, etc) and previously we made you select one. Now when you visit the MP3tunes web player, music starts playing immediately. If there's music you specifically want, you can of course navigate and play those songs but in the meantime, we will play something you like. This makes playing music from your personal collection effortless. There's no need expend energy thinking about what music you want to listen to.
Infinite Music
The music never stops in Pandora. Once it begins it continues until you halt it (or their service thinks you went away). Previously in MP3tunes, once the music you selected, say an album or playlist, completed it would be silent. Now at MP3tunes the music never stops. When the last song is done, similar tracks are identified and automatically start playing. When those tracks are over the process is repeated. We call this Infinte Playlist and you can turn the feature on/off by looking for the icon that looks like an infinity symbol.
Recommendations
A benefit of Pandora is that it's always making song recommendations as you listen. We decided to do the same with MP3tunes. Whenever a song is playing, a section of the screen will display recommended tracks. As Pandora does it will expose you to new bands and new songs - some you're probably not familiar with. The songs won't automatically play, but you can preview those tracks, purchase them and add them to your permanent collection.
With these changes, MP3tunes is now more of a "lean back" experience meaning it's more like TV where you lean back on the couch and let it go. If you want to drive you can grab the wheel at anytime and skip forward and back, create your own playlists or select specific songs to play at anytime. But for those looking for a cruise control music experience MP3tunes now fits that description. Try the new MP3tunes web player and let me know what you think of these features.
--MR
michael@michaelrobertson.com
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