And it’s a darn good idea, in the wake of iHeartMusic’s new unlimited custom music channels. The redesign is live and available to all listeners. It’s been completely rebuilt on faster HTML5 software with more modern look and feel. However, if you’ve forgotten your password you may be out of luck, as the new site does not carry usernames or passwords over from the old one. New features include:
Faster Load Time – HTML5 enables the site to load almost instantaneously and allows for fluid navigation across the service.
Simplified Station Creation – Enhanced auto-complete choices and personalized suggestions make creating new stations and discovering new music or comedy more intuitive and personal.
Social Features and Sharing Tools – Enhanced listener profiles and a new music feed offer a centralized place to find, like and comment on what friends and like-minded listeners are discovering and enjoying on Pandora. Stations now have their own URLs, enabling far easier sharing of favorite stations via Twitter, Facebook, or on the new Pandora social feed.
Improved Control – Prominent and ubiquitous access to familiar player control buttons including Play, Pause, Thumbs-Up and Thumbs-Down icons helps listeners personalize their music and comedy stations. A new shuffle feature also allows listeners to shuffle any collection of stations to add variety to their listening experience.
Enhanced Artist Information – An option to learn more about the music, find lyrics, read artists’ biographies and expand the album art size.
Unlimited listening – There is no longer a cap* on hours for any listeners.
RBR-TVBR observation: With Facebook adding Spotify for music, the best move for Pandora was to allow social media integration from its end instead. Also, there’s an “abuse prevention” limit of 320 hours per month. That’s much better (and completely reasonable) vs. the previous puny 40 hour limit—which included hearing ads. If a Pandora account reflects listening in excess of 320 hours a month they’ll reach out to the account holder to ensure the account is being managed appropriately.
