DesertStandard

I almost wrote this horrible article on Search Engine Optimization but got 20% into it and wanted to stab myself. Then I realized I really needed to make mention of this website called Pandora.com.

If you haven’t heard of it then you arent spending enough time on Internet. If you have heard of it but aren’t completely addicted to it then you need to have another look, I suggest doing it now. Just go to the site and enter in a song or artist that you like and, via the Music Genome Project, Pandora creates a ‘Station’ that is based around various critera that are determined by much more than I expected as explained in this PC Mag article:
The program makes connections between songs, based on the findings of a team of 35 analysts who have rated over 400,000 songs on hundreds of different criteria—including vocals, lyrics, harmonies, tempo, instrumentation, mood, and inflections—that link them to genres or eras, without the actual genre labels. Pandora’s founder, Tim Westergren, also founded the Music Genome Project, which created an analytical process that identifies a song’s similarities and differences, in essence, its DNA.

After you listen for a few songs it will have you setup a profile, which is free as in beer, and just leave it on all the time. As you go along you can tell it what you like and more importantly what you do not like. You can bookmark or buy a song. You can learn more about the song or artist or album. Its really quite enlightening.

Naturally the social networking aspect of things happens and you can hook up with friends just like on myspace and facebook, but now its just about music. You can invite them via email or just search for them. My id is roger5800 so feel free to look me up. I am still just starting our so am well short of the 100 station max but I am working on it everyday.

So now when you read about a band or someone mentions it you just go to your Pandora and plug them in and bam you get them and a whole cadre of bands that you have probably never heard of, ever, in, your, life, before.

Oh and now I have to get me some of these:squeezebox and this.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 9:39 am and is filed under Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.