Wow. I'm normally not much of one for the sites that collect my personal information, but this one is different. I'm somewhat of a music nut, and somewhat stuck in the influences of folk songwriting and 70s era rock. I ran across an experimental site a while back called Mercora (now part of social.fm, which was really cool. You could search for your favorite artists and songs, and for a while you could actually record a limited amount of them to your computer. It could broadcast your music library with others, and you could listen to theirs. It was a pretty good way to discover new music, but it had some flaws. You were at the mercy of the "DJ" whose station you were listening to. Sometimes their stations were not very coherent. Mozart + Rap + Country on the same channel didn't flow very well. It appears that the site still works that way, but I haven't used it since the name change. Meanwhile I got sucked into Pandora.
Here's how it works. You're not sharing libraries with other users. You are limited to their library (which seems pretty extensive), so you might not get your favorite indy rock band or older LPs which never survived the transition to CD, but what you do get is very interesting.
First, you search for an artist or song title. Next, it creates a "station" with similar songs, based on certain characteristics of the music. You can optionally add other artists to your station to customize it. Pretty neat? Not yet. This is where it gets interesting. If you really like a song, you give it a thumbs up. If you don't like it, thumbs down. Soon, an eerie thing starts happening. You start hearing music that you've forgotten about, or have never heard before, but you like it...
After a while, you realize that not all of your music belongs on the same station. Pandora lets you create multiple stations, to accomodate various moods or styles. I have a couple that I attempt to keep strictly instrumental. Others are for foreign music, country classics, killer rock riffs, or soothing music. Others are ordered more by their decade. It's amazing how well and how quickly it starts figuring out your music interests.
Oh, and so far, it's free as in zero-cost. Wow. It appears to be financed by advertising graphics and links to purchase music, but your music keeps on playing.
Since this is the age of social networking, you can listen to other users' stations, or share links to yours. I added my channel list to this blog, so if you're reading this from a news aggregator, don't miss out. Here are some links to my channel. You can add them to your RSS reader to see when I create a new station.
My profile on Pandora
My Pandora stations RSS feed
The more you play with it, the more it grows on you. Enjoy!
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2 comments:
Well, I've been meaning to get together with you and compare notes about what you're listening to. I, too have been listening to a lot of 70's online here lately. Groups like Manfred Mann's Earth Band and Sweet, plus other songs here and there. You may have just talked me into creating a profile.
Go for it, Brent. I finally went to your family's MySpace pages. No, I don't have one. Yeah, it was kind of odd seeing a lot of the people I've known since elementary or middle school who might remember me as the computer guy, and I'm the one who doesn't use MySpace or FaceBook. Even my sister uses FaceBook.
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