[RockdaMan]

“We started on it about a year ago. But even earlier than that, we’d been talking about it. There were core navigation problems that needed fixing. At first, we had been talking about more incremental changes, with the site still operating in Flash. But then last summer, it became clear that browsers with full HTML5 capabilities had gained enough support. We realized we could do the full Pandora experience without Flash,” he says.

That’s right, another site once completely reliant on Flash is breaking the addiction.

“Back in 2004, web browsers didn’t natively know how to play music. There was QuickTime, Real Player, and Flash. Flash was so ubiquitous back then — it was an obvious choice,” Conrad says.

Conrad says that it was also about a year ago, as mobile growth was exploding, that he began to realize that Pandora’s app for the iPhone and iPad were actually closer to the essence of Pandora than the web version was. So it should be no surprise that New Pandora takes its design cues from the iPad app Pandora first built last year (this is similar to the way in which “New Twitter” was influenced by Twitter for iPad).

Going back to HTML5, clearly Pandora is making a bet here that this is the future of the web. But that’s an easy bet to make at this point. Still, they’re thinking bigger too. “HTML5 is the only technology that has a shot at being a ubquitous solution across a wide range of computing experiences — tablets, TV, automobiles, etc. We still have along way to go, but it’s possible,” Conrad says.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/12/new-pandora/