Starting today, however, the company is expanding its paid offerings and releasing Pandora One, a subscription-based upgrade that will transform the way you use the Internet radio service.
So what's Pandora One? Essentially it's just a service upgrade from the standard Pandora experience we already know and love, where $36/year gets you a few fantastic extras that might be worth the price if you're a hardcore user.
Perhaps the biggest upgrade comes in the form of higher quality music streaming. Pandora One subscribers will experience online radio at 192k bits per second, which is ridiculously fast and should keep you streaming without any blips. Plus, since you no longer have to worry about frequent service timeouts for inactivity (you can have up to 5 hours of inactivity), Pandora One requires little interaction from you to continue on its merry music making ways.
Pandora One also includes a new desktop application for Mac and Windows that's so much cooler than their previous attempt at a desktop app. It runs off Adobe AIR and models the look and feel of Pandora's popular iPhone app. There's also a new mini player available for those who prefer to run Pandora in a browser window, and Pandora One also comes ad-free, includes limitless skips, and offers custom music player skins.
We definitely think Pandora is making a smart move with the package upgrade options. Their previous subscription service was offered at the same price point, but included very few incentives, other than an ad-free experience, that were worth paying for. With the desktop application, mini player, and practically limitless music listening experience, Pandora One can turn a much larger percentage of their freeloaders into paying customers and perhaps hit profitability even sooner than expected.