Pandora gets a facelift, goes unlimited for free streaming music (Yahoo! News)

The music streaming site just got a complete overhaul and a set of social features

Music lovers may be awash in a sea of tune-streaming services at the moment, but Pandora persists as a perennial favorite, especially when it comes to discovering new music. The site, which lets you curate your own custom radio stations, has long been one of the most prominent web music services around ? but it was admittedly in need of a facelift.

Pandora

Not only did Pandora just launch as cosmetic redesign of its web music portal, but it also lifted the restrictions on how many hours of streaming sonic goodness you can devour each month. Previously, listeners could only enjoy 40 hours of free, ad-supported music each cycle, so if you like to maintain a constant flow of background music, you probably found yourself in the lurch from time to time.

Beyond the freedom of an all-you-can-stream model, Pandora's website is now built on HTML5 (which has powered some pretty neat browser-based sonic experiments)?rather than Flash. While that sounds a bit on the technical side, you'll notice the change in speed immediately. Not only does the site load faster, but it offers a more fluid, dynamic design that's far more intuitive than its comparatively clunky predecessor. That speed will come in handy for Pandora's new emphasis on social sharing: you can now share a song or a station to Facebook or Twitter, or just track your favorite tracks within Pandora's new social music feed on your profile.

With the advent of Spotify, many streaming services are scrambling to?stay appealing to web music lovers. While Pandora takes a decidedly more browser-centric approach that distinguishes it from our latest, greatest European import, it still has sites like Rdio, MOG, and Last.fm to contend with. While it's difficult to predict how all of these competing services will fare in a post-Spotify music scene, Pandora's new design is a breath of fresh air for anyone loyal to the service ? and perhaps enough to bring back anyone who's strayed.

This article originally appeared on Tecca

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