Pandora Launches Own Version Of Stories

Always looking to stay relevant, Pandora is one of the most recent platforms to incorporate a 'stories' feature into its offerings. Given the nature of the company, their stories look a little different than other platforms, marrying music tracks and podcasts into single playlists.

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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

You have to hand it to Pandora – the company is still trying new things to differentiate itself from the competition. The latest feature is its version of Stories, a new format which marries music tracks to podcasts in a single playlist.

Artists can use the feature as well by making a playlist of their songs and adding voice tracks about their history to them. Authors, podcasters, and storytellers can use the feature by using the platform’s licensed songs as a drama element.

Since podcasting is coming on so strongly and Spotify recently purchased two podcasting companies upping the competition in the category, Stories could be different enough to make people take notice.

The company has put together a few samples for users to listen to, one being John Legend’s Glorious Journey. This and other stories are available free of charge to Pandora Premium users, but users on the ad-supported tier must listen to a 30 second commercial before accessing.

As far as artists are concerned, Stories is an added feature to its Artist Marketing Platform, although at the moment you must submit an application first. You can find out more on the Pandora website here.

Various platforms in the past have tried enhancing music using additional multimedia resources, but listeners have generally turned a blind eye to them. On the other hand, this could be something that podcast listeners can embrace. It will be interesting to see if they find stories a worthing addition.