Pandora's Jukebox
Almost certainly showing my age as I remain well behind the techno-curve, but I was just tipped to Pandora.com yesterday and so far I'm encouraged.
Pandora's a free service that allows one to create a sort of custom Internet "radio" feed of music. Registering is extremely basic - email, password selection, year of birth and sex - and one starts with a song or an artist, leaving it to Pandora to choose songs one might like based on that initial selection. As each one comes up there's the option to give it a thumbs-up or down. It claims that if one gives the song a thumbs-down it shouldn't be offered again.
The user's free to make as many separately-themed "stations" as one wishes, and there are options to add variety to a given station by typing in a song or artist so that Pandora's search for new music is expanded.
I'm only into day two of it so it's too early to report on the nuances other than to say that upon logging in today it seems much more responsive. During my first session I may have been too impetuous in looking to skip past songs, so that after the third time it gave me a message that due to its licensing agreements it could only skip so many songs in an hour. Having hit that wall it would continue to play a song after I'd given it a thumbs-down rather than just passing onto a new selection. Whether it has loosened up a little in this new session or it's simply getting better about giving me songs I approve of remains to be seen. Out of fifteen songs so far today it's immediately skipped ahead to a new song as soon as I've given the latest offering a thumbs-down, having done so to five of them.
Among the items I'm watching for is whether or not my disapproving a given artist and song will prevent a different performance of that song from being offered to me later. At least a couple times so far a song's popped up that I would have approved were it not for their having chosen a live version. A solid 80% of the time I want the studio version and am not interested in a recording of a live performance.
The next time I go into my template I'm going to disable the jukebox I've had set over on the right. It was fun for a while, but ultimately it had become more of an annoyance (especially set for auto-play as it was) than a plus.
Almost certainly showing my age as I remain well behind the techno-curve, but I was just tipped to Pandora.com yesterday and so far I'm encouraged.
Pandora's a free service that allows one to create a sort of custom Internet "radio" feed of music. Registering is extremely basic - email, password selection, year of birth and sex - and one starts with a song or an artist, leaving it to Pandora to choose songs one might like based on that initial selection. As each one comes up there's the option to give it a thumbs-up or down. It claims that if one gives the song a thumbs-down it shouldn't be offered again.
The user's free to make as many separately-themed "stations" as one wishes, and there are options to add variety to a given station by typing in a song or artist so that Pandora's search for new music is expanded.
I'm only into day two of it so it's too early to report on the nuances other than to say that upon logging in today it seems much more responsive. During my first session I may have been too impetuous in looking to skip past songs, so that after the third time it gave me a message that due to its licensing agreements it could only skip so many songs in an hour. Having hit that wall it would continue to play a song after I'd given it a thumbs-down rather than just passing onto a new selection. Whether it has loosened up a little in this new session or it's simply getting better about giving me songs I approve of remains to be seen. Out of fifteen songs so far today it's immediately skipped ahead to a new song as soon as I've given the latest offering a thumbs-down, having done so to five of them.
Among the items I'm watching for is whether or not my disapproving a given artist and song will prevent a different performance of that song from being offered to me later. At least a couple times so far a song's popped up that I would have approved were it not for their having chosen a live version. A solid 80% of the time I want the studio version and am not interested in a recording of a live performance.
The next time I go into my template I'm going to disable the jukebox I've had set over on the right. It was fun for a while, but ultimately it had become more of an annoyance (especially set for auto-play as it was) than a plus.
Comments
I'm still getting a sense of how well it will or won't work for me as I see how it does (and apparently doesn't) respond well to my input. So far it's reasonably good, though. I've resisted creating additional stations, trying to steer this one into a more nuanced affair while trying to explore all of its features.
I'm trying to get used to it all to a degree where I'm letting it entertain me as background rather than finding myself reacting immediately to it and actively waiting through songs I may like (and so gave a thumbs-up to) but may not want to listen to right this moment.
Sure, I can skip a song here or there, but after a few times it won't let me do it. Yeah, I'm one of those people who drive the passengers nuts by changing stations every minute or so; I fear that mp3 players have only made me less tolerant. ;)
It's cool to start off with stuff I'm familiar with and then go to musical places that are new. I rarely skip a song, as I have music going on in the back ground while I'm doing other stuff.
There are songs that come up that I don't care for, but ... mostly, Pandora delivers new and unusual stuff I enjoy.