Pandora’s new Facebook app – should privacy be an issue?
If you’ve ever wondered what kind of music your Facebook friends listen to on Pandora, the online streaming Internet service now has an app for that. Linking your Pandora account to your Facebook account enables you to survey the channel tastes of your Facebook friends.
After months of “furious activity,” the feature is now ready, Pandora says. “Now your friends can be a daily source of inspiration for new stations and music discovery,” explains Pandora founder Tim Westergren on his blog. “I’ve been testing out the service while we were developing it and I have to say it really brings a wonderful new human dimension to the listening experience.”
The new app isn’t hard to access (instructions here). In the lower right of Pandora’s homepage you’ll see a box that says “Friends’ Music.” Click “check it out,” and then “Connect with Facebook.”
So I did that. And the next thing I knew, I had a complete list the Pandora channels accessed by my Facebook friends. But you know what? I’m not entirely sure that some of my Facebook buddies want me to know that they have a Lady Gaga channel, or they dig a band named Audioslave, or they listen to Lily Allen’s hit tune ”Fuck You.”
Don’t get me wrong. My friends are a pretty cool bunch of people. But do they know I’ve got access to this information now? (more…)



