Ever used Pandora? The popular streaming service provides users with a customized radio experience based on their preferred music styles. Want a station based solely on your love of Disney covers? Done. Want an album of Bob Dylan-style crooning? No problem. Pandora currently has 77 million users. However, it also has a lot of ads.
Thankfully, Amazon may have an ad-free alternative. Amazon announced its new music streaming service on Tuesday, known as Amazon Prime Stations. Just like Pandora, users can customize their listening experience to include everything from covers to just jazz to all of the Dave Matthews Band's catalog. Unlike Pandora, Amazon Prime Station requires users to have an Amazon Prime account (currently $99 a year).
The service is available on a computer via Amazon's website, as well as part of the Amazon Prime PC and Mac app. Mobile users can access the service via the Amazon Prime App on iOS or on the Kindle Fire. Prime Stations is not available on Android devices.
Design-wise, Amazon Prime Stations is pretty much a clone of Pandora, down to the "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" rating system, the music access feature and the radio station's learning algorithm, but is the price worth it?
A subscription to Pandora One costs a user $4.99 a month and provides unlimited music streaming without ads. Spotify's Premium streaming accounts cost $9.99 and would provide on-demand streaming as well as a radio service. Amazon Prime would cost $99 a year, which is more than twice the cost of Pandora One, but less than Spotify. However, Amazon Prime provides more than a station. Users will also have access to free two-day shipping, Instant video, Kindle book rentals and more.
The one catch is that Amazon Prime's music library is significantly smaller than Pandora or Spotify's library. Only songs that are labeled with the "Prime" sticker are available for streaming, and it's likely that only Prime-ready songs will be available on Amazon Prime Stations.
