Those users who select Pandora as their platform of choice to stream their music now have the option to upgrade to a more premium membership with new benefits.
The music streaming platform announced on Monday the launch of Pandora Premium, its new on-demand subscription tier that provides a more hand on experience for users.
For Pandora Premium, the company tapped into its massive data from its 81 million listeners to identify the stations and songs they like from its thumbs up button, as well as the popular searches and skips.
As a result, Premium will automatically create a playlist based on all the tracks the user's give a thumbs up to.
The "My Thumbs Up" playlist available in "My Music" provides a way to access all the user's favorite songs in one location,with new songs being added as they continue to like along the way.
Pandora is also making creating playlists easy for Premium members with the option for them to tap on "Add Similar Songs" feature. Instead of manually adding tracks to a playlist, after the user has a song or two they can tap on the options to have Pandora's Music Genome Project that analyzes user data quickly add other songs to create the perfect playlists.
Premium is also more personalize experience for users thanks to new features like having new music suggesting in "Browse" that is tailored to that particular user, with new music added each week. This includes both album recommendations and the latest releases in that user's favorite genres.
Just like with Pandora Plus, the platform will automatically download Premium user's top stations, and will start playing them offline when the user loses their signal. Users also have unlimited access to downloading any album, song, or album—something that previously wasn't available in the free tier.
The search functionality also got a major upgrade for Premium users.
Search is now easier for these music fans since Pandora Premium has an advanced and accurate search feature that filters out tracks to bring up the most relevant item. For example, no covers will appear in search results when looking for a song. The search will get smarter over time the more it's used.
Pandora is still embracing its radio format, but enhanced its design by combing the look of Rdio. This includes a redesign of the "Now Playing" screen to know have changing background colors based on the artwork of the music the user is listening to.
Design wise, there is also a new menu for adding, downloading and sharing, as well as the addition to the replay button that was released with Pandora Plus.
This is just the start of what's to come for Pandora Premium. The music service will soon add other features for its premium users like AutoPlay, and compatibility on more devices.
Pandora Premium begins rolling out on March 15, with invites being sent to select listeners with a free trial. This tier costs cost $9.99 per month, and will be available for all over "the coming weeks."
