Pandora Internet Radio launched its personalized music service in 2005. The company grew out of Savage Beast Technologies, a project built around the Music Genome Project, which sought to describe songs through many musical characteristics.
Pandora’s service used those attributes to create personalized internet radio stations. Users could provide feedback, such as thumbs-up or thumbs-down ratings, and the system used that information to shape later selections. This differed from a conventional broadcast station because the listening experience was algorithmically personalized.
Pandora began as a web service and later expanded through mobile applications. It is a music-streaming brand owned by Sirius XM, but it should not be confused with Pandora the mythological woman, Pandora’s Box films, or the Pandora asteroid and Saturnian moon.