Pandora.com

[Ken VanTassell]

I use Pandora quite often and find it very entertaining !

--Ken

On 10/10/07, Dan.Strassberg <dan.strassberg@att.net> wrote:
> Anyone else on this list experimented with the Pandora Web site? It
> allows you to set up and "program" your own Internet radio stations
> (as many as 100 per user). It's currently free, though there is a
> $36/year option that--I guess--blocks the ads, which I have so far
> found unobtrusive. To use either the free or paid services for more
> than a few minutes, you must register, which requires supplying
> Pandora with some demographic data, but not enough data to make me
> worry. Whether Pandora will survive the Internet music-royalty wars
> is, I think, unproven. But while it lasts, I'm finding it to be a lot
> of fun and a source of some very nice listening.
>
> According to the site, the software behind Pandora was created by
> something called The Music Genome Project, which has categorized
> probably tens of thousands of album cuts using a system that involves
> rating each cut according to an (unspecified) large number of musical
> attributes, none of which I've found either named or described on the
> site. To set up a "station," you start by telling the software what
> kinds of music you like. You do this by listing an artist or artists
> and/or song titles. The software then says you like music similar to
> what you've listed. The selected music can include many titles and
> artists that you did not list but which the software considers to have
> qualities similar to those of the titles and artists you did list. In
> my case, many of the selected artists and titles are ones I had never
> heard of (much less, heard) before I started playing with Pandora.
> Each time Pandora presents a selection (even one you specifically
> requested), it gives you the opportunity to tell it whether you liked
> the selection, disliked it, or wish that your "station" would not play
> it again for 30 days.
>
> Pandora seems to like to create groups of four or five tracks from a
> particular genre and then transition to a similar number of tracks
> from a different genre that falls within the realm that it has decided
> you like. However, your real-time "votes" can guide its selections
> into different areas within your specified musical universe--or even
> outside. After three or four days of listening and tweaking, I find
> most of the music it selects for me to be quite pleasing.
>
> Anyone who wants to hear what I like apparently can find out by
> logging into Pandora and bringing up my "station," which I've named
> "Mel Torme and Much More." BTW, I've not heard anything by Torme
> himself for at least two days.
>
> I've learned through sad experience that this music mix can never make
> it on an over-the-air commercial station. Even though WJIB plays some
> of the same selections, it probably would never play a mix like this
> because it just wouldn't attract the number of listeners that Bob
> Bittner reaches with the mix he has worked out.
>
> -----
> Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
> eFax 1-707-215-6367
>
>