Pandora helps artists connect better with fans via its new AMPcast feature

By Kris Wouk March 9, 2016

With the battle for music streaming supremacy showing no signs of slowing down, each service has to do as much as it can to prove itself as the music streaming option, both for fans and artists. Some are doing this through the sheer size of their catalog, or via exclusive releases from artists, but Pandora is taking a different approach.

Yesterday Pandora announced a new feature it calls AMPcast, which aims to help artists better connect and communicate with their fans. The new feature allows artists to send “spontaneous audio messages” to the service’s 80 million users.

“AMPcast has the potential to change the odds for musicians,” said Pandora founder Tim Westergren, himself a former touring musician. “This powerful tool, combined with the scale and reach of Pandora, gives every talented and hard-working artist a real shot to build a career in music. Marketing and promotion for artists will never be the same.”

Pandora launched a very similar feature to this just over a year ago. Artist Audio Messaging provided the same sort of communication, but involved a more cumbersome process for artists, requiring them to record messages in a studio. With AMPcast, artists can record and send messages right from their phones.

“Lately I’ve been using AMPcast to spread the word,” rapper G-Eazy said. “It’s as easy as it can possibly be. Pandora is changing the game with this one.”

While artists can use AMPcast for anything, Pandora intends for the new feature to be used to alert fans of upcoming releases, tour dates, and other information. Essentially, the company wants to create a sort of audio-only Twitter feed for artists to keep their fans updated.

The new feature is available to a small group of select artists right now, and will roll out for all artists “within the coming months.” For fans, everything needed to get messages from their favorite artists is already in place.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

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