Pandora outs HTML5 site for TVs, consoles and STBs

In an effort to bring its music-streaming service to as many platforms as possible, Pandora launched an HTML5 website geared toward televisions, gaming consoles, and set-top boxes. Pandora says that the new site is "optimized for a 10-foot experience," making it ideal for streaming music in the living room.

At the moment, the new site is only available on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 through the web browser. However, Pandora plans to bring the HTML5-equipped site to televisions, set-top boxes and other gaming consoles. Pandora doesn't specify any companies that they're working with, but we're guessing it's the usual big ones, like Sony, Samsung, and Vizio, as well as Roku and Boxee.

The company says that they "must seamlessly deliver Pandora to every possible listening environment," so while streaming Pandora using your home entertainment system might not be the first choice of device to play your music on, Pandora wants that option to at least be available if it users choose to stream their tunes that way.

The new site can be navigated two by heading to tv.pandora.com or pandora.com on your gaming console, and based on the image above, the user interface is rather simplified, with the album art on the left side, and controls on the right, including play, pause, skip, thumbs up, and thumbs down, as well as song title and artist.

Pandora says that 10 million users are already listening to Pandora through their smart TVs using the built-in app, so it seems listening to music on the big screen isn't as rare as people would think. However, when compared to the service's 200 million total user base (as of April), streaming on TVs is really only a fraction of Pandora's usage.

VIA: Pandora Blog

SOURCE: tv.pandora.com