Pandora

Pandora

Their mission as stated on their web site is “To play music you'll love - and nothing else.” They do this via the Music Genome Project which works to dissect music by “melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics, etc”. By doing this they can link music together to create a stream of songs which are complimentary.

Intended Audience: People who want to listen to music online. It’s really that simple.

Usefulness of Content: I find the site very useful in that I can type in a musician's name and sit back and listen to a like mixture without having to choose my own playlist. Pandora does it for me. The site has to follow certain rules in order to stream free music, it cannot fast forward, rewind, or play requested music. You can also create either a free or paid account which will save your stations for further use.

Consistency of Design: The design of the site is pleasing in that it is not cluttered. The muted colors and rounded corners are a good design choice. The “jukebox” is in the middle of the page and it draws the necessary attention to it.

Ease of Navigation: When first opening the site as a visitor a box will ask you to enter in an artist’s name so that it can start a station. By guiding the visitor through the process it makes the navigation easier. Once a station has started it is easy to just minimize the screen and let the music play. As each song plays the name of the artist and album name as well as the cover art is displayed in a box which scrolls as new songs appear.