Interactions in the New Music Economy (Gideon D'Arcangelo & Pandora CEO and Creative Dir) March 13, 2007

Social Interaction in the New Music Economy
Gideon D'Arcangelo, ESI Design, New York & Lecturer, New York University

Pandora's Experience: Learning from Users, Designing for Users
Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, & Dan Lythcott-Haims, Pandora's Creative Director

Social Interaction in the New Music Economy:
The line between music consumer and music maker is blurring; in this middle space are design opportunities to improve the ways we discover, share and use music in our day-to-day lives. The practice of call and response between audience and performer, long an attribute of musical experience, is finding its way back into our interactions with digital music. Gideon will discuss the impact new music technologies are having on the role of the listener. Drawing on documentary fieldwork tracking the behavior and attitudes of music consumers, the presentation will outline a continuum of active musical experience, and suggest how new interfaces for music fans and music makers are helping bridge the gap between these two groups. From the music fan perspective, the presentation will cover 'walkman busting' and 'podjacking' as forms of public broadcasting and social experiments seeding CD mix clubs on among public radio listeners. From the music maker perspective, the talk will cover work from the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) community. The presentation will discuss how trends in music listening, sharing and making point to the rising value of taste in the new economy of music.

Pandora's Experience: Learning from Users, Designing for Users
Dan's abstract: Pandora set out to introduce a new way of listening to, and discovering, music. Building such a new experience required rethinking the interactions around a web-based music application. Dan will talk about how Pandora focused on building the best listening experience, by balancing simplicity with the right levels of personalization and interactivity. The design process led to the development of Pandora's unique "voice," that helps to further engage listeners in their music discovery. Pandora also engages listeners in the development process, with both user testing and ongoing communications and Dan will share some of the inevitable surprises from this process.

Tim's abstract: In 1999 Tim launched Savage Beast Technologies, an internet based music recommendation technology based on a new approach called the Music Genome Project. He raised seed financing from several Silicon Valley investors and, along with two co-founders, grew the company to 50 employees and released a commercial product in the beginning of 2001. Tim developed the original Music Genome product, working closely with a technical lead, and hired, trained and managed a team of 40 professional music analysts to build the database. The company eventually signed licensing agreements with AOL, Best Buy, Tower Records, Barnes&Noble, Borders and several other online businesses. Midway through 2001 they exhausted their seed capital and began seeking additional financing. Tim took over the role of CEO, while also handling the Business Development, and the Sales & Marketing role at the company. Over the next 3 years, Tim pitched the company more than 300 times to prospective investors, while also serving as the company’s business development lead, manager and internal/external evangelist. In the worst funding environment in many decades, Tim secured enough bridge financing to last until March of 2004. He recruited a new management team and in concert with the new group, completely overhauled the company strategy and launched the business into online radio. The new entity was renamed Pandora. Since 2004, Tim and the team have built and launched a very successful consumer product, Pandora. Since the free service was opened in November, 2005, Pandora has become the world's third largest online radio broadcaster, with more than 5 million registered listeners and a staff of 100 employees.

Official Website: http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20070313/