Pandora has now added the social features it promised a few months ago.

… as of today users can now list bio information, leave comments, bookmark other users and create artist lists.

…While the focus of Pandora hasn’t radically shifted, the new features do put some additional emphasis on Pandora users and community, rather than just services.

All the new profile features come with privacy controls, users can set their profiles public or private and turn comments on and off. It would nice if Pandora had an option to control the privacy of comments rather than just turning them on and off, for instance perhaps an option to allow trusted users to comment but block everyone else. Unfortunately that isn’t currently possible.

In addition to the new profile features, there’s also a couple of new search possibilities that let you find other users with similar tastes. When you find another user with a station that fits your musical taste, you can add that person by clicking the blue “bookmark this person” button on their profile page (assuming their profile is public).

Good stuff.

This adds Pandora to the growing list of music-based social networking sites, along with Last.fm, MOG, iLike, ProjectOPUS, Finetune, Goombah, Lala, Haystack, MusicHawk, ReverbNation, Bandwagon…

And to think that just a few months ago it really looked like Last.fm had no competition.

My ambition (well, one of them) for the new year is to spend some time exploring these sites and figuring out just what they have in common and where they differ. If you know any others I should add to the list, or have opinions about any of the ones I’ve mentioned, please leave mention in the comments.