Why can't everything be like Pandora One?

Mark this date down- today I finally decided to to pay for music again. Yep, I've decided to subscribe to Pandora One.


For the last few years, I've been using streaming services, podcasts, and regular Pandora and Slacker to listen to music, and it's been OK, but nothing impressed me. Last night, I decided it was time to take the plunge and upgrade my music listening experience to something that looks and sounds good. A few of you wondered why, so here is the quick list of reasons  why I'm now a happy paying customer. There are some really good take aways here.

1. Any device, anytime. Between my desktop, laptop, iPhone, PS3, home theater and TV, Pandora is everywhere. It's like having a personal DJ following me around, offering music on demand to suit my mood. With background processing on IOS4, it's killer.
2. User experience. The user experience is the same on Windows 7 my phone, or Linux using Adobe Air, meaning it just works. Really well done.
3. The "freemium" model works. I've been sampling Pandora off and on for a year or so, and finally decided to take the plunge. They let me become a customer on my own terms.
4. Social integration. Their partnership with Facebook really opened up the possibilities of how data is shared, and it's awesome to see what my friends have bookmarked and shared. It's helped me discover some really great new artists that I never knew exited.
5. Ease of upgrading. I had seen the button "upgrade" for a few months before clicking on it. When I finally clicked on it, it was a 30 second process to convert me into a paying customer. It just worked, and worked really well.

This got me thinking about my work in the ECM field, and wishing that more interactions could be so simple. Let people try before buying, offer a great customer experience, and connect with the devices people already use. This certainly gives me things to bring up with some of the vendors and resellers I work with, and now I have some good music to listen to in the process. 


If you are on the service, add me http://www.pandora.com/people/daniel.oleary