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[Pandora][1], the streaming internet radio service, has begun testing pre-roll, in-stream advertisements and so far user reaction seems to be overwhelmingly negative. The Digital Music Weblog has [a brief interview with Pandora's CTO Tom Conrad][2] in which he says "Less than 10% of our daily listeners hear the ad.... It's cap'd at once per day per listener and it's targeted by age."
There's post in [the forums at Ideabox][3] that sums up many users' reactions to the ads: "Never. Put. Ads. In. The. Music. Stream."
But the capped at once per day bit seems to be a change based on [negative][4] [feedback][5] since initially users reported hearing the ad several time a day.
I use Pandora pretty much every day and so far I haven't actually heard the ads, but according to most, the primary ad seems to a 9 second segment for McDonald's dollar Value menu. Some of the negative reaction may be attributable to the advertisement's lack of targeting. After all, what the heck does McDonald's Dollar Value menu have to do with music?
Perhaps if the ads applied the same intelligence as Pandora's recommendations features they would be less annoying. For instance why not stream ads from music-relevant services. Conrad says that such targeted advertising may be in the cards, "we're always looking for ways to improve our ability to deliver relevant ads that don't detract from the listening experience."
One of the appeals of Pandora for me, aside from its excellent recommendations features, was that the company seemed more personalized than many of its competitors. For instance the tag line on the main site reads: "We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you." I guess I didn't know that conversation would include product peddling, but if it's any consolation to Pandora, if nothing else, at least you know there are a lot of users who are very passionate about your service.
But at the same time of course Pandora needs to make money, otherwise the service will disappear altogether and the company seems to be listening to feedback since they've apparently cut back on the number of ads.
One of the difficulties facing Pandora, as Pete Cashmore [points out on Mashable][6], is that Pandora's service doesn't generate pageviews, which makes it a hard sell for advertisers who still believe that pageviews are tied to traffic numbers.
Still, regardless of the reasoning, the prospect of in-stream ads leaves me a little cold, wasn't the promise of internet radio at least partly to escape from the high ad-to-music ratio of commercial FM?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
[1]: http://www.pandora.com/ "Pandora"
[2]: http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/2007/01/09/pandora-exec-speaks-about-advertisements-in-stream/ "Pandora exec speaks about advertisements in stream"
[3]: http://ideabox.crispyideas.com/article/show/50313 "Never. Put. Ads. In. The. Music. Stream."
[4]: http://jdamer.com/wordpress/2007/01/06/pandora-crosses-the-line/ "Pandora crosses the line"
[5]: http://geeklimit.com/2007/01/08/pandora-gets-commercials/ "Pandora gets commercials"
[6]: http://mashable.com/2007/01/09/pandora/ "Pandora Audio Ads Unwelcome"
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