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Pandora, created by the Music Genome Project, streams music customized to your taste through your web browser. This latest release adds keyboard controls, RSS feeds, and new favorites and sharing features.
Pandora 2.1 adds RSS, more features
Seeded on Thu Feb 2, 2006 2:44 PM EST
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- Public Discussion (12)
Pandora is awesome, isn't it? As someone who tends to listen to the same albums over and over, this service is really broadening my musical horizons.
#2 - Thu Feb 2, 2006 3:05 PM ESTForgot to add that Mac OS 10.4 users should definitely check out the Pandora widget, which works much better now that there are keyboard controls in this version.
#3 - Thu Feb 2, 2006 3:08 PM ESTPandora's awesome if you're looking for new music. If you haven't tried it, give it 10 minutes. You'll be hooked.
#6 - Fri Feb 3, 2006 9:04 AM ESTPandora's only downside is that because every song is categorised manually according to musical values - it takes about 30 minutes to upload a new song to the back end - the system is slow on the uptake of new artists and bands. I'm definitely a fan. :-)
#7 - Fri Feb 3, 2006 9:36 AM ESTI've tried both last.fm and Pandora. They both have advantages and disadvantages.
What I find interesting is the fact that most of the problems I have with these kinds of services stem from the licenses they have for using the music. For example, you can't repeat a song in Pandora or skip too many songs.
Do they really think I'm going to repeat a song 50 times? Do they really think I have the time to sit there hitting the skip button 500 times just so they can play a particular song? The problem, from my perspective, is that media companies have not been able to formulate policies that are both pro-consumer and anti-piracy.
#8 - Fri Feb 3, 2006 9:56 AM ESTit's against the law to skip more than 5 song or play a song 3 times [something like that]... i heard it when amber macarthur interviewed the pandora dude on inside the net
#9 - Fri Feb 3, 2006 10:21 AM ESTIt's not against the law. It's against their licensing agreement. Don't confuse the two.
#10 - Fri Feb 3, 2006 10:22 AM ESTTo lament: garbage in, garbage out. If you don't like the songs it recommends you can easily tweak the system by voting "thumbs down" to any song you don't like. Two thumbs down and you'll never hear from that artist again, unless you voted thumbs up on at least one of their other songs. Each song is analyzed individually so if you put in an artist with a wide artistic range as your seed, you may hear some unexpectedly strange (to you) tunes.
As far as the limitations on skipping or repeating, yes, it's because of their licensing agreement. They couldn't afford to offer hundreds of thousands of songs for free if you could play anything you like on-demand.
I haven't checked out last.fm so can't comment on that. Just a very satisfied Pandora user. :-)
#11 - Fri Feb 3, 2006 11:52 AM ESTI find most of these streaming music services very interesting as to how they each approach this concept. Thus far, Pandora seems to be my favorite of the newer free ones. In the first two weeks of use, I found more than 15 artists whom I had never heard of before and thoroughly enjoyed. There are times where it doesn't seem to be as accurate as it's proved to be previously and I guess that would be my only gripe with it's service. All in all for free it can't be beat........yet.
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