2011 type public traded as nyse p founded january 2000 ; 16 years ago 2000 01 as savage beast technologies oakland california u.s. headquarters oakland california u.s. no . of locations 26 area served australia new zealand united states founder s will glaser jon kraft tim westergren key people tim westergren ceo tom conrad cpo 1 services internet radio revenue 920 800 000 fy 2014 2 employees 1 300 subsidiaries rdio as of december 22 2015 next big sound ticketfly website pandora.com written in java alexa rank 282 june 2016 3 advertising banner ads video ads audio ads registration optional required to save stations users 250 million registered 2014 4 79.4 million active 2015 5 available in english current status active native client s on universal windows app windows 10 mobile windows 10 windows phone ios android pandora internet radio also known as pandora radio or simply pandora is a music streaming and automated music recommendation service powered by the music genome project . the service operated by pandora media inc. is available only in australia new zealand and the united states . the service plays musical selections of a certain genre based on the user s artist selection . the user then provides positive or negative feedback as thumbs up or thumbs down for songs chosen by the service and the feedback is taken into account in the subsequent selection of other songs to play . the service can be accessed either through a web browser or by downloading and installing application software on the user s device such as a personal computer or mobile phone . contents 1 history 1.1 acquisitions 2 features 2.1 streaming 2.2 limitations 2.3 mobile devices 3 technical information 4 business model 5 royalties 6 critical reception 7 advertising 7.1 revenue 7.2 pitch to advertisers 7.3 methods of advertising 7.4 market segments 8 internet radio competitors 9 owned and operated stations 10 see also 11 notes 12 references 13 external links history edit in 2000 pandora media inc. began as savage beast technologies and was founded by will glaser jon kraft and tim westergren . 1 6 the idea was to create a separate individualized radio station for each user having just the good music on it with none of the junk that other users like . the company quickly ran through its initial two million dollars in funding and in 2001 the company ran out of money . founder tim westergren convinced the fifty employees of the company to work for two years without pay . 7 initially the company pursued a transitional strategy of technology licensing to third parties including aol best buy barnes & noble and tower records . in 2004 the company returned to its initial vision of producing customized radio stations and changed its name to pandora media . 8 the website began as only a paid service but quickly changed to an advertising service to make it also available free for users . in 2011 pandora launched its ipo on the nyse and is listed as p . 9 on march 7 2013 pandora chief executive in april 2013 pandora announced that their radio streaming service had passed 200 million users about 70 million of whom were active monthly . 10 by december 2013 pandora was noted as accounting for 70 % of all internet radio and 8 % of total radio listening in the united states . 1 46 on september 1 2013 pandora removed a 40 hour per month limitation for free mobile listening . 11 in december 2013 itunes was described as pandora s biggest existential threat . 1 46 in early 2015 pandora removed lyrics from song pages but returned them by july . on april 16 2015 song samples were officially removed . at around the same time a new feature was introduced to give users the ability to receive notices about their favorite artists through the music player . they also redesigned the thumbs up down feature to allow the listener to undo their action . by january 2015 songs played on pandora had received over 50 billion thumbs up from users . 12 acquisitions edit on june 11 2013 pandora announced that it would purchase the conventional fm radio station kxmz in rapid city south dakota . 13 14 on october 7 2015 pandora announced that it has acquired independent ticketing agency ticketfly for 450 million . 15 in november 2015 streaming music service rdio founded by skype co founders janus friis and niklas zennstroem declared bankruptcy and sold its assets to pandora for 75 million in an all cash deal . 16 features edit streaming edit a station is set by specifying an artist or song or a combination of multiple items of any kind in a single station . listeners can tune into pre made genre stations other users stations or create their own stations based on their musical interests . each track played can be responded to with favorable thumbs up or unfavorable thumbs down buttons which determine if it should be played and how much should similarly classified songs be played in the station . a second negative response to the same artist will ban that artist from the selected station unless the user has marked the artist positively on another occasion or if that artist is listed under the station s variety . no response is applicable to musical attributes or to albums . an unfavorable response immediately stops play of the track . clicking the thumbs down or skipping to the next song too many times in a row will result in a short ban of skips . pandora also utilizes short advertisements in between every couple of songs . in addition a menu is provided with the choices i m tired of this song allowing users to remove a song from the station temporarily although it counts as a skip ; why was this song selected allowing users to learn more about the composition of each song ; move song to another station ; new station ; and bookmark . a buy button is located at the top of each song block as well . from there listeners can click on links to buy the song from itunes or amazon . there is a setting in each member s account regarding whether the user wants songs with explicit lyrics played . this however applies exclusively to song versions from albums with the parental advisory label as other songs with censored versions will have that version played . an example is jet airliner by the steve miller band which had one word censored for radio play . with explicit lyrics off that version will play because the album did not have a pa label . while listening users are offered the ability to buy the songs or albums at various online retailers . over 400 different musical attributes are considered when selecting the next song . these 400 attributes are combined into larger groups called focus traits . there are 2 000 focus traits . examples of these are rhythm syncopation key tonality vocal harmonies and displayed instrumental proficiency . the service has two subscription plans a free subscription supported by advertisements and a 54.89 usd year or 4.99 usd month subscription without ads . there are also ads in pandora mobile for mobile phones and the pandora in the home computer appliance . as of october 2014 less than 5 % of active listeners were paying subscribers . 17 as of the ipo in 2011 pandora had 800 000 tracks from 80 000 artists in its library and 80 million users . 18 by november 2014 pandora had approximately doubled its library size topping 1.5 million songs . 19 as of june 2015 pandora had 79.4 million active users . 5 in august 2016 it announced that it would be offering a streaming service consisting of a free tier a 10 monthly plan and a low cost option with mid level features . 20 limitations edit to comply with the requirements and protections offered by the dmca pandora serves users only in the united states new zealand and australia . initially this was enforced lightly by requiring a us zip code at registration ; but since may 3 2007 pandora has used ip addresses to block users from non complying countries . 21 rewind or repeat is not permitted . until may 2009 six skips per station were allowed per hour further limited to 72 skips every 24 hours ; giving a thumbs down response or a don t play for a month response count as skips . on 21 may 2009 the skip limit was altered such that it counts total skips from all stations with the limitation of twelve total skips every 24 hours . if a listener gives a song a thumbs down or don t play for a month after the limit has been exceeded the song will continue to play ; it is only after the song has completed that it becomes subject to the listener s restrictions . this limit was not applied to the vista gadget available until microsoft ended support of the sidebar on vista and windows 7 . the gadget also featured an advertisement at all times . as the gadget was not a part of any specific browser the advertisement could not be blocked . play of a single artist is limited as pandora provides similar music not a play on demand service . as of 2009 the mini player is only available with pandora s subscription service . free accounts include advertising . these include simple interruptions with the ad listed on the stream ; advertising skins which do not interrupt the stream ; and popup ads . the vista player had no advertisements . initially users with free accounts could listen to 40 hours of music a month and could pay .99 per month for unlimited streaming . in september 2011 pandora removed the 40 hour listening limit . 22 this 40 hour limit on free listening was re introduced in march 2013 for mobile devices . 23 however this limit was removed once more on september of the same year . 11 mobile devices edit pandora ios app pandora is available on the iphone . it is ad supported and retains the original skip limits . pandora is also available on google android os for tablets and mobile phones and blackberry 10 handsets via the amazon app store . the windows mobile client is limited to a select number of handsets ; however the installer is available from 3rd party sources and works fine or with only minor display glitches on most devices . in march 2013 it became available on windows phone 8 as a free app with ad free streaming until 2014 . 24 the pandora for blackberry os 7.1 and earlier application is limited to at & t sprint verizon t mobile boost mobile and u.s. cellular carriers but visiting the pandora website directly other blackberry users have been successful in downloading the application . technical information edit the pandora media player is based on openlaszlo . 25 pandora can also be accessed through many media streaming devices such as roku reciva based radios from companies like grace digital sanyo and sangean frontier silicon based connected audio systems slim devices sonos 26 and heos by denon . 27 product s . on july 11 2008 pandora launched a mobile version of their software for the apple iphone and ipod touch through the itunes app store . pandora is also available for windows phone android phones 28 blackberry platforms hp webos used on the palm pre palm pixi palm pre 2 and hp veer . pandora was the provider for msn radio until msn discontinued their internet radio service on june 18 2008 . 29 a modified version of pandora has been made available for sprint nextel . pandora