Pandora.com - unbelievable music site

[fink]

It's pretty good. I like the editing features.

[imadreamer2]

Guess, I will have to ask my computer dad what hardware he put in that might be giving me a problem. He might know.

[photolady]

That was amazing. Thanks usil. I'm going to give the url to my daughter too.

[falcon2000]

Thanks, usil. Pandora is great. Good quality sound, nice editing features, easy to use ... it's way, way better than the one I've ben using ... the lame-mo Yahoo-LauchCast which gives low quality sound (the free one) and its web page is ugly, busy and jammed w/ ads.

[Tuttle]

This is awesome. Maybe a 40 GB quota on my Internet plan isn't big enough after all.

[usil]

For those that liked this site...

last.fm is quite similar. You have to download their player in order to hear music. Personally, I prefer Pandora, but I read an article where the author favored last.fm.

[wojo629]

thanks for the link!!! having fun....miss the old Napster!!!

[Tuttle]

Looks like they work differently -- Pandora is based on analysis of the music, and Last.fm is based on what other people are listening to.

[eddds40]

Thanks for site Usil

[Nick Grana]

Posting on this as a greenhorn in December was a little premature.
Since then, I've found this site to be one of my major sites to play with.
With all the crap about pirates, I find no probs finding almost anything I want.
I listened to the whole CD of one of Richard Pryor's comedy routines and more.
George Carlin or you name it and it's there.
Sweet. Hope it lasts.

[usil]

I received a very frustrating email yesterday from Pandora's founder.

Dear Pandora listener,

Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S.

It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.

We show your IP address is '82.166.55.120', which indicates you are listening from Israel. If you believe you are seeing this by mistake, we offer our sincere apologies and ask that you please reply to this email.

Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music - we have always believed in honoring the guidelines as determined by legislators and regulators, artists and songwriters, and the labels and publishers they work with. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world. Other than in the U.K., we have not yet been able to make significant progress in our efforts to obtain a sufficient number of international licenses at terms that would enable us to run a viable business. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.

Until now, we have not been able to tell where a listener is based, relying only on zip code information provided upon registration. We are now able to recognize a listener's country of origin based on the IP address from which they are accessing the service. Consequently, on May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We will be posting updates on our blog regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding.
tim_signature.jpg
-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

[Welshjim]

Having problems.
I put www.pandora.com into my Trusted Sites (to allow ActiveX controls to run.) (Actually, the same things described below happen if pandora.com is taken out of the Trusted Sites.)
I turn off IE's popup blocker for www.pandora.com.
Using IE7 I go to www.pandora.com
I get to the screen shown in the attachment. (This appears after a progress bar suggests that Pandora is loading, but obviously it has not.)
I click on "How do I do this?" and read
"1. Reinstall Flash. But I already have the absolutely latest Flash Player (Version 9,0,45,0) installed. I reinstall it anyway.
2. Right click on the gray Pandora Tuner and select "Settings..."

3. Click the second tab (the folder icon) at the bottom to reach the "Local Storage" menu.

4. Drag the slider all the way to the left (0 KB), click "OK," then "Close."

5. Now reload the page by clicking 'Refresh' / 'Reload' from the browser toolbar (usually located between the 'Stop' button and the 'Back'/'Forward' buttons).

6. You should get a message complaining about Flash Local Storage not being enabled (I get the same window as in the attachment), and then click "Allow."

7. Refresh the page again by clicking 'Refresh' / 'Reload.'

8. Click the small white "log in" link toward the bottom right and log in with your Pandora account information.

I do all the steps through the first part of #6. (As mentioned, the message window I get is the same as before. It is not clear whether I should be getting something different.)
But, perhaps most importantly, there is no Allow button to click. (There also is no IE Information Bar message.) So I cannot go any further.
I also did all of the above using Opera as the browser. Same result. Similarly I turn off Zone Alarm firewall. I disable Norton AntiVirus. Same result.
No "Allow" option. (I did find an Allow button on the Camera&Microphone tab, but it is already set to Allow.)
Can anyone help? Am I supposed to pre-register somewhere first?

[fink]

I'm using Flash 8, have the cache disabled and am not registered but it works for me.

It does say that registration isn't necessary for first time users (which I am not)... maybe try deleting cookies and try again if you've used the site before.

Needless to say I'm in Canada but it works even though it says it's not supposed to.

[usil]

Me too Fink. I guess they haven't implemented it yet.
And I don't think you need to register unless you want to save your stations.

[buf]

Sorry to read of your bad and mad news re. Pandora and it's demise for you and others around the world. It is a great avenue for good music with each listener being their own DJ. I listen to it almost daily.