Full-screen branding

Pandora, a music streaming service, is one of my favorite web apps. I'd say I use it for about half of each workday, leaving the window open on the laptop on my desk.

Which means I see it pretty much all the time. This is an advertiser's dream.

Pandora not only realized this, but they've taken advantage of it in a way few web-based services can. They rebrand the entire page for advertisers, without impairing core functionality. And to my surprise, I find this not irritating, but delightful. It's like getting a neat new skin on the application.

And better still, some of these include one or more custom Pandora stations. I'm sure the music was carefully selected by some marketing staff, but I get a kick out of it, and I have even been introduced to some new music.

So, that's what it is. Here's how it looks:

Maybe not everyone will be as enamoured of this as I am, but I think it's a pretty slick way of paying the licensing fees for the music I listen to for free — and about seventy thousand times less intrusive than the 20-minutes-per-hour of commercials I hear on broadcast radio. Advertisers get to associate with something i find positive, while I get internet radio customized to my taste in music — if that's not a win-win, what is?