Pandora to launch next week

Pandora‘s founder, Tim Westergren, sent an email out to all beta testers announcing that Pandora will go live next week, and extending the free trial period for beta testers to September 28. Pandora has had an overwhelmingly positive blogger response to their beta. I assume the general launch will be well received as well.

Our previous profile on Pandora on August 20, 2005 is here. The text of the email is below:

Hello,

I first want to say thanks very much for participating in our friends & family preview. It has been a very exciting and gratifying few weeks for all us here at Pandora. Since we launched the beta site last month, we’ve seen tremendous interest in the service – one user even went so far as to call Pandora ‘the best reason for the web to exist’. Most importantly, you’ve given us a ton of great feedback on how we can improve the service. Thanks for all your time and effort.

We’re launching the site to the general public next week. Based on your feedback, this new version will include a ‘station history’ feature which allows users to see what’s played and go back and rate a song or buy it on iTunes/Amazon after it has played. We’ve also made it easier to share stations and have made some improvements to the user interface. You’ve also contributed to a long list of great ideas going forward which we can’t wait to add.

To thank you for participating in the preview, you will be able to use Pandora for free through September 28th. To log in, use your username, which is your email address, and password. (New users will be able to use Pandora for free for a short period, then can subscribe to the service for $36 for one year of unlimited use).

Thanks again for your help and encouragement! I sincerely hope you’ll stay with us as we start this exciting new phase for the company.

Cheers.

Tim Westergren
Founder
Pandora Media
(formerly Savage Beast Technologies, Inc.)