A week and a half ago, Munjal and I met with Tim from Pandora in Portrero Hill. It was one of those magical, memorable coffees with a guy who has a great deal of passion for what he is doing.

Of course, he and Munjal hit it off right away.

Pandora's story is extremely compelling. Tim and Tom and a couple of others first starting working on the Music Genome Project in the tipping point of the Dot Com Bubble. Their original idea was to work with commercial music sites to create their recommendation lists.

Unfortunately, the bubble burst before they realized the potential...or is it fortunate for those of us who enjoy Pandora today in its current (and future) form?

From there, Tim discussed their struggle to keep the project alive, continuing to employ well-trained musicians to assign 400 layers of attributes to 100's of thousands of songs. For the past 5 years, the Music Genome Project has been built slowly, allowing for the kind of results we see today.

Probably the most striking part of Tim's story was that, even through really trying times, he stuck with this project because of his vision. Tim is a musician himself and he believed there needed to be a better model in place to help catapult new musicians onto the scene. One that is made possible by his project, but, ultimately, is driven by you and I...the users.

Pandora is truly a Web 2.0 company. They are combining individual choice with community collaboration with an overall 'greater good' goal.

Besides being inspired, we learnt that Pandora's only 'marketing' was done when they showed up at Bar Camp and did a quick demo...and that was just intended to be a feedback gathering demo.

Of course, they demo'd it to Michael at TechCrunch, which makes all the difference.

Tim couldn't reveal the numbers, but he did tell us that they are seeing rapid growth and the traffic from their recommendations to Amazon and iTunes is leading to deeper discussions.

I really hope for their growth and success. I know I'm loving my subscription. I couldn't spend a day without it.

Tags: Pandora, Web2.0