How to Use Pandora

Being able to choose any music and have a steady stream of related songs and artists truly is an amazing app, and Pandora offers all this and more. Simply sign up for a free account by going to the Google Play store and downloading the Pandora app or signing up online at Pandora.com and clicking on the Register button.

Once you have the app, it is time to create a channel. Channels can be a particular artist, song, soundtrack, bit, etc. The channel will play similar artists and songs using the technology Pandora pioneered called the Music Genome Project which uses similarities in the structure of music to find other artists and songs that match.

It is a pretty good matching engine and you usually are pretty happy with its song recommendations. I find many new artists through Pandora, of which I would probably otherwise never have heard of.

Inside your station will be the current song playing and some control interface below it. There is a thumbs up and a thumbs down button. The thumbs down button is very useful for eliminating songs that you don’t want to hear again or that you have already heard enough. Do not use the thumbs up button at all if you want to discover new music. The thumbs up insures that the song will be played again on that channel, but this may not be what you want, especially after hearing it for the 20th time.

Instead, create several channels of your favorite artists and thumbs down what you don’t like. When you find a new artist or song you like, create a new channel for them. (You can do this on the home page) This creates the best environment for discovering new music.

How do you use Pandora? Sound off in the comments below:

Written by: Jophiel Silvestrone

Jophiel Silvestrone has written 326 posts in the Tech Blog.

Jophiel grew up on a ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana near Chico Hot Springs. Working on the ranch instilled work ethic and self motivation. Filled with this drive, Jophiel started mowing the local school's yards twice a month throughout the summers, at the age of 12. He moved to Billings in 2004, where he has been deeply involved in the local business community ever since. A serial entrepreneur, Jophiel has ran multiple businesses in our local community. The first business, a janitorial and carpet cleaning company, founded in 2005, has employed over 50 locals. Moving on to the media industry, Jophiel and several partners founded Green Directory Montana in the spring of 2007. Green Directory's sustainability ranking software awarded points based on sustainable or "green" actions. These points counted towards a business's total "Green Score," which in turn ranked them against other businesses in their category and throughout the entire site. It also featured a limited edition print version distributed annually. A business acquisition allowed Jophiel to focus on new projects, and a few close business colleagues and Jophiel started Rocky Mountain Mr. & Ms. Magazine, a lifestyle publication for men and women in the Magic City. After a year and a half at the helm of RM3 Magazine, the business was purchased. He now runs a web development company SkyPoint Studios and fathers his son Jaoquin, who plays football, basketball, soccer, and is learning snowboarding from his dad. Recently, has expanded to locations in Havasu, Arizona & Vegas. SkyPoint Studios is a market leader in both Billings & Havasu and Jophiel is working on building that same level of market dominance in Vegas. Specialties: Extensive experience in online and offline business. Especially savvy at WordPress, and operate several sites, one example is the blog: skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com/tech-blog. Check out skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com for the latest projects from SkyPoint Studios.