Pandora launches improved big screen experience

Pandora, which has long been my music app of choice, is part of many set-top boxes and smart TV's -- it is even built into my DVR. Today the music service introduces an all new big screen experience, launching its official TV service -- another step towards making the radio app available virtually everywhere.

TV.Pandora.com hits the market aiming at Xbox 360, smart TVs, set-top boxes and more. According to Tom Conrad from Pandora, "The next generation of Pandora for the living room is an entirely new experience designed from the ground up for your television and remote control. This new initiative is standards-based and embraces next generation TV, game console, and set top box architectures that support open web standard".

The company tells us that the new Pandora will run in a browser on an XBox 360 or Playstation 3 and that the system will spread to other environments as more vendors move to bring standards-compliant TV’s and set top boxes to market in the coming months.

Conrad claims that "to date more than 10 million listeners have enjoyed Pandora on their internet-connected television". Impressive numbers, but Pandora is locked in a battle with other competitors, most recently Google Music All Access, which brings Pandora-like capability, but adds much more, making the playing field unlevel once again.