FierceWirelessFierceWirelessEuropeFierceDeveloperFierceMobileContentFierceBroadbandWirelessFierceVoIPFierceIPTVFierceTelecomFierceOnlineVideo

Free Newsletter

About | View Sample | Privacy
Related Topics >> Pandora | AT&T

AT&T Launches Personalized Radio from Pandora

Tools

Posted November 8, 2007

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced that Pandora, the popular and
rapidly growing Internet radio service, is now available on select
wireless phones from AT&T. With Pandora, AT&T's wireless
customers can discover new music, listen to their favorite artists and
create their own personalized radio stations on their handsets.

Pandora makes listening to favorite music and discovering new
music simple and fun. Users just type in a song or artist that they
like, and, within seconds, Pandora delivers a personalized radio
station over the air to wireless customers' handsets with songs that
fit the same sound and style. The songs are selected based on the Music
Genome Project, Pandora's innovative system that uses highly trained
musicians to analyze music one song at a time. These musicians identify
hundreds of different musical qualities of each recording, including
melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, arrangement, lyrics and
vocals. Using this analysis, the listener's personalized radio stations
are created. Listeners can then rate the songs that they hear with a
simple "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to further refine the stations'
playlist to their tastes.

"Pandora allows our customers to access their customized radio
stations wherever they are without the need to carry an extra device,
and that provides the ultimate convenience," said Mark Collins, vice
president of Consumer Data for AT&T's wireless unit. "Pandora's
unique approach to radio, combined with AT&T's already robust
mobile music platform, supports consumer demand for more wireless music
offerings. This service is another example of the many innovative ways
that AT&T connects our customers to more of the music they want at
the moment they want it."

"Pandora is a great way to discover new music that you may have
never found otherwise," said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. "Now,
listeners can have personalized music throughout the day -- with the
stations that they created -- whenever and wherever they want. With
this launch, AT&T and Pandora are continuing the ongoing expansion
of Internet radio across all forms of listening."

With Pandora, users can explore as much as they want. The Music
Genome Project quickly scans its entire collection of analyzed music --
almost a century's worth of popular recordings, from new to old,
well-known to obscure -- to find songs with musical attributes similar
to the listener's choice. Then, it creates a listening experience full
of current and soon-to-be favorite songs. Subscribers can create and
refine up to 100 unique stations.

Pandora on AT&T phones is integrated seamlessly with the
online version of Pandora. Subscribers will receive customized
streaming radio stations delivered to them on both their mobile
handsets and on the Pandora Web site via a universal account. With the
ability to customize radio stations on their phone as well as on their
PC, users will receive a very personalized radio experience that fits
their individual needs. Up to 100 stations can be saved in a user's
account, and those stations can be enjoyed anywhere within AT&T's
extensive 3G network.

Information about the current song, including title, artist and
album, is displayed on the phone's screen, and customers can also
scroll backward to see information about recently played songs.
Customers can rate songs with either a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down,"
and Pandora will immediately tweak the station's programming. Users can
pause songs or skip songs that they don't want to hear. Additionally,
AT&T customers can bookmark a song, and the song name and artist
will be saved. The bookmark can serve as a reminder to purchase the
song later on the AT&T Mobile Music Store.

Pandora is now available on eight AT&T phones: the Samsung
SYNC, a717 and a737, the Motorola V3xx and RAZR 2, LG trax and existing
LG CU400 and CU405 models. To access, users simply click the music icon
on the device and then shop applications.

Pandora is available for a free trial for the first five days and
then costs $8.99 a month. AT&T recommends selecting a MEdia Max
bundle, which not only provides unlimited mobile Web-browsing with
MEdia Net but also unlimited access to streaming video, CV and basic
content. The MEdia Max bundle is $19.99 a month and includes 200 text
messages.

The new service complements AT&T's existing Mobile Music
experience, which is the richest and most complete mobile music
offering in the industry. AT&T Mobile Music enables customers to
choose how they want to discover and listen to music -- whether via
instantaneous downloading or via sideloading from popular music
subscription services, such as Napster and eMusic. Other AT&T
Mobile Music offerings include satellite radio with XM Radio, a
song-recognition service called MusicID and a vast ringtone library.
AT&T was the only U.S. carrier to offer a phone with iTunes
capability in 2005 and launched the Apple iPhone in June of this year.
Customers can find AT&T's Mobile Music offerings by clicking on the
music icon on their music phones.

For the complete array of AT&T offerings, visit www.att.com.

Note: This AT&T news release and other announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding
company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies,
are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around
the world. Among their offerings are the world's most advanced IP-based
business communications services and the nation's leading wireless,
high speed Internet access and voice services. In domestic markets,
AT&T is known for the directory publishing and advertising sales
leadership of its Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM
organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators in such
fields as communications equipment. As part of its three-screen
integration strategy, AT&T is expanding its TV entertainment
offerings. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products
and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is
available at www.att.com.

(C) 2007 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.
AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T marks contained
herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T
affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property
of their respective owners. For more information and detailed
disclaimer information, please review this announcement in the AT&T
newsroom at www.att.com/newsroom.

About Pandora Media(TM)

Pandora (www.pandora.com)
is a personalized radio service, available anytime and anywhere on the
PC, in the home and on mobile devices. Pandora is based on the Music
Genome Project, which began in 2000 and is the most thorough analysis
of popular music ever undertaken. Each song in this massive collection,
which includes Pop, Rock, Jazz, Electronica, Hip Hop, Country, Blues,
R&B, and Latin, is analyzed by one of more than 50 trained
musicians, and assessed against up to 400 distinct musical attributes
(encompassing melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) to capture its unique
musical identity. Pandora uses this information to build playlists
based on musical similarity. By simply entering a favorite song or
artist, a listener is instantly launched into a personalized listening
experience, full of new discovery as Pandora explores their favorite
part of the music universe. Listeners can create up to 100 of these
personal radio stations and refine them by providing feedback via the
Pandora radio tuner. Additionally, listeners can create profiles,
search for other listeners in the Pandora community who have similar
musical tastes, and find stations built by other listeners, using
artist and song names as well as genre and mood search terms. The music
analyst team works daily to keep the Music Genome Project updated with
the latest releases, emerging artists, and an ever-deepening collection
of catalogue titles.


More stories about Pandora   AT&T