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I'm a huge Pandora fan as well. For some reason one day I decided to quickly profess my love for them via email and actually got a response asking if I wanted a

by rscott 17y ago

I'm a huge Pandora fan as well. For some reason one day I decided to quickly profess my love for them via email and actually got a response asking if I wanted a shirt or hat. This blew my mind, and I rock my Pandora baseball tee often as a result.

litewulf 17y ago
I got a hat. I treasure that hat like it were my first born. Its amazing how much more highly I think of them for basically just throwing out hats.
- hyperbovine 17y ago
  You have stumbled onto my all-encompassing Theory of Service: people love getting comped. No matter how cheap or silly, if it came for free people will remember you fondly for it and give you their business in the future. And they will probably blog and post on HN about it too :) If I ever open a restaurant I am going to randomly dispense free appetizers and desserts. If I ever run a (freemium) startup, I am going to randomly give away free accounts. Not to everyone, not so much that it hurts the bottom line, but enough that the buzz and goodwill generated outweighs whatever loss I'm taking.
  - skolor 17y ago
    There is definitely a limit there. No matter how cheap or silly, as long as it doesn't seem cheap, if it came for free people will remember. The times I have been given something free that is particularly cheaply made, usually something made out of very low quality plastic, I always think "Oh, these guys evidently don't care about their users/fans/supporters, if they're going to give me something that won't last 10 minutes".
  - litewulf 17y ago
    I think its important to give away things that are not your core business. I like the pandora hat and I remember it fondly, but if my coworker got a super-awesome pandora account, I think I would just feel "dang, why didn't I get one".
unalone 17y ago
I never used Pandora that much—I prefer consciously sitting down and listening to a particular album—but when I threw an early morning party, I set Pandora to play light jazz and the music gave everything a great feel. It's awesome that nowadays tools exist to let us manage music that way.
physcab 17y ago
What's your shirt size? We'll send you a t-shirt (or a few!) if you're willing to try our service. And actually, I'll extend this offer to any HN reader/user. Chris from Grooveshark.
- steveplace 17y ago
  dibs. I'm a large. Huge fan of your service, great way to get a hold of obscure music fast. Haven't built out my playlists yet though Finally tracked down a song I've been looking for since I stopped using my old creative zen player: http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Sasha_s_Voyage_Of_Ima/1597983 http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Sasha_s_Voyage_Of_Ima/1...
  - physcab 17y ago
    We do have quite a bit of obscure music. For sharing songs, you might want to check out our URL shortener, TinySong.com (we have other sharing features on the songs themselves in the Info pane). You can also utilize our API if you'd like to do cool stuff with our library.
- ericwaller 17y ago
  Hey Chris, I'm a huge fan of Grooveshark, and it's cool to see you guys on HN. I do have one suggestion for you though: autoplay is a great feature, but it took me a long time to realize the button was even there. If there's a way to make it more prominent I think that would help.
  - physcab 17y ago
    Hey, we're all huge fans of HN. Great community. Thanks for your suggestion about Autoplay. This will be fixed in our upcoming product launch. If you want a sneak peak, check out preview.grooveshark.com.
- joshhart 17y ago
  Grooveshark's awesome! Hopefully I can come visit you guys the next time I'm back in Gainesville.
jrwoodruff 17y ago
I had a similar experience. I was working thanksgiving evening and sent them an e-mail complimenting their unique advertisements (weird, I know - I'm graphic artist though, so I really appreciate the creativity that goes into most of their ads). I got an e-mail back a few minutes later, from the cfo. I was blown away, and actually felt kinda bad for e-mailing on a holiday! I never expected a response at all, let alone that night.

by rscott 17y ago

litewulf 17y ago

I got a hat. I treasure that hat like it were my first born. Its amazing how much more highly I think of them for basically just throwing out hats.

hyperbovine 17y ago
You have stumbled onto my all-encompassing Theory of Service: people love getting comped. No matter how cheap or silly, if it came for free people will remember you fondly for it and give you their business in the future. And they will probably blog and post on HN about it too :) If I ever open a restaurant I am going to randomly dispense free appetizers and desserts. If I ever run a (freemium) startup, I am going to randomly give away free accounts. Not to everyone, not so much that it hurts the bottom line, but enough that the buzz and goodwill generated outweighs whatever loss I'm taking.
- skolor 17y ago
  There is definitely a limit there. No matter how cheap or silly, as long as it doesn't seem cheap, if it came for free people will remember. The times I have been given something free that is particularly cheaply made, usually something made out of very low quality plastic, I always think "Oh, these guys evidently don't care about their users/fans/supporters, if they're going to give me something that won't last 10 minutes".
- litewulf 17y ago
  I think its important to give away things that are not your core business. I like the pandora hat and I remember it fondly, but if my coworker got a super-awesome pandora account, I think I would just feel "dang, why didn't I get one".

unalone 17y ago

I never used Pandora that much—I prefer consciously sitting down and listening to a particular album—but when I threw an early morning party, I set Pandora to play light jazz and the music gave everything a great feel. It's awesome that nowadays tools exist to let us manage music that way.

physcab 17y ago

What's your shirt size? We'll send you a t-shirt (or a few!) if you're willing to try our service. And actually, I'll extend this offer to any HN reader/user. Chris from Grooveshark.

steveplace 17y ago
dibs. I'm a large. Huge fan of your service, great way to get a hold of obscure music fast. Haven't built out my playlists yet though Finally tracked down a song I've been looking for since I stopped using my old creative zen player: http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Sasha_s_Voyage_Of_Ima/1597983 http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Sasha_s_Voyage_Of_Ima/1...
- physcab 17y ago
  We do have quite a bit of obscure music. For sharing songs, you might want to check out our URL shortener, TinySong.com (we have other sharing features on the songs themselves in the Info pane). You can also utilize our API if you'd like to do cool stuff with our library.
ericwaller 17y ago
Hey Chris, I'm a huge fan of Grooveshark, and it's cool to see you guys on HN. I do have one suggestion for you though: autoplay is a great feature, but it took me a long time to realize the button was even there. If there's a way to make it more prominent I think that would help.
- physcab 17y ago
  Hey, we're all huge fans of HN. Great community. Thanks for your suggestion about Autoplay. This will be fixed in our upcoming product launch. If you want a sneak peak, check out preview.grooveshark.com.
joshhart 17y ago
Grooveshark's awesome! Hopefully I can come visit you guys the next time I'm back in Gainesville.

jrwoodruff 17y ago

I had a similar experience. I was working thanksgiving evening and sent them an e-mail complimenting their unique advertisements (weird, I know - I'm graphic artist though, so I really appreciate the creativity that goes into most of their ads). I got an e-mail back a few minutes later, from the cfo. I was blown away, and actually felt kinda bad for e-mailing on a holiday! I never expected a response at all, let alone that night.