Pandora Internet Radio is refitting its music streaming and automated recommendation mobile application with new personalization tools that will enhance and simplify the music listening experience for mobile consumers. 

The platform?s beta release of a user-interface refresh for iPhone and Android smartphone users will allow listeners to further customize their Pandora experience and discover more of the music they love. The update shows how Pandora has stayed ahead of the pack by anticipating the mobile mind-shift?s power to accelerate consumers? craving to control their media-consumption choices, including music.

?The action of thumbing has been an important piece of personalization on Pandora, allowing listeners to directly tell us what they do and do not like,? said Chris Martin, Pandora?s chief technology officer.

The update, which will roll out to all Pandora mobile and tablet users over the coming months and is part of Pandora?s effort build out its mobile offerings for consumers, brings station personalization to the forefront of the listener experience. 

New transitions from the Station List to the Now Playing screen give users more clarity on sense of place when navigating their listening experience.

 Giving clarity on sense of place.

Through the new personalization icon, listeners have the ability to view comprehensive thumb history and adjust thumb feedback for previously listened-to tracks through a new ?un-thumbing? capability.   

The revamping also improves access to artist information. Simple swipe and tap navigation gives listeners access to song details so they can learn more about new artists along with their favorites.

Pandora, which had more than 76 million monthly listeners logging more than 1.65 billion listening hours in September alone, initially made inroads as an innovator. But it also has proved to be one of the early success stories at monetizing mobile via advertising.

As users listen to music on Pandora, they are often viewing graphics, reading lyrics to songs or liking particular songs on each channel. The attention that users give the platform during consumption opens a convenient advertising channel for various brands.

There is no question that consumers have a highly personal relationship with their mobile device. It goes virtually everywhere with people and is the source for much of their content consumption.

That creates not only strong response rates for advertisers, but great opportunities for storytelling as advertisers have a chance to reach mobile-minded consumers in different contexts throughout the day.

With such big brands as McDonald?s, Sony Pictures and IKEA having run mobile ads on Pandora, it is clear that marketers are seeing an opportunity to reach Pandora users as more and more them spend time engaging with the platform on mobile devices. 

Pandora?s mobile advertising strategy focuses on enabling marketers to extend their Web-centric spending to multi-platform spending on Pandora so they can speak to the full range of their target audience as these consumers spend more time on mobile.

Additionally, the company is focused on offering mobile advertising solutions that bring targeting, interactivity and measurability.

A McDonald?s interactive campaign within Pandora?s iPhone application encouraged users to tap on the ad to find out about a summer promotion offering any size soft drink or sweet tea for $1.

Sony Pictures partnered with Pandora to promote is Total Recall film using mobile advertising, a branded radio station and a giveaway.

And Swedish furniture retailer IKEA ran an interactive promotion in Pandora?s iPhone app to helps consumers find the products they needed for the school season.

?This UI refresh gives us the opportunity to elevate the great personalization tools that already exist on Pandora and more prominently connect listeners with the behind the scenes technology that makes Pandora great,? Mr. Martin said.