Pandora lets artists send audio messages to listeners

Pretty soon Pandora listeners will be hearing messages from their favorite artists within their music stream.

Last October, Pandora launched a service called AMP, a platform that gives artists insights about where, how, and how much fans are listening to their music on Pandora.

Now Pandora says it’s launched a new enhancement to the service that lets the artists send audio messages directly to their fans. Messages might include tour announcements, new album release dates, crowdfunding campaigns, or the story behind the artist’s latest song.

Artist Audio Messaging, as the service is called, is being tested by a small number of Pandora’s artist clients. Pandora says it hopes to learn from the trial then begin scaling up the service to more artists.

“Since I founded Pandora, we’ve been dedicated to helping listeners effortlessly discover and enjoy music they love,” said Pandora founder Tim Westergren in a blog post today. “But all along, we’ve envisioned a time when the power of the platform could be put in the hands of the artists.”

Pandora now has more than 80 million listeners.