SharkJumping

Pandora, the new pesonalized subscription radio music service I previously discussed, announced this week that they are now offering a free version that has the identical feature set, but which will eventually be ad supported.  I say eventually, since it doesn't seem to currently have ads in it.  If it were me, I would decrease the feature set a bit in the free version, usually by offering a lower bit rate or limiting some of the features, and then add house ads to the equation right now to make clear the differences between the paid and free options, but I can understand this move in a competitive market. 

Given that it now was free, I went back to try the service again.  It's clear that Pandora is one of the best radio services in the marketplace, but I still struggle with the web page radio concept (vs a client) since my Amos Lee station was abruptly ended today when I clicked on an unlrelated AIM link from a colleague which took me away from the Pandora page, thus killing the stream.  In general, I'm still not entirely sure that Pandora is better than the "good enough" of free competitors such as AOL Radio, Yahoo Radio and MSN Radio, but they're making a great run at proving me wrong.