http://norman.walsh.name/2008/07/29/pandora 11 54 2008-07-29T10:43:39-04:00 Norman Walsh 2008 Norman Walsh Commercial free music on your own personal radio station. Buggles got it wrong: video was never a threat to the radio star. Don't get me wrong, I like a good music video as much as the next guy; I'm even old enough to remember when MTV played them. (I think, but I won't swear, that I saw the inaugural broadcast of Video Killed the Radio Star.) But I listen to music in all sorts of places where I can't or won't watch videos: while I'm driving and while I'm working, to name just two. I like to listen to music while I work (or at least, while I'm programming, not so much when I'm reading or writing), but I find the spoken word totally distracting. It's just a personal quirk, but while I can happily code through hours of music, a single radio DJ break or commercial completely derails me. So “internet radio” is as useless for my purposes as a regular radio. For years I've been listening to music off my iPod (or off my laptop). I know lots of folks who build extensive playlists, but I'm lazy, I just put the whole thing on shuffle. It works great, and with several days of music in the mix, I don't get many repeats. But I also don't get any new music unless I buy it. And if I don't hear it, how will I know I want to buy it? Catch 22. No more. If you live in the United States, you can listen to music on Pandora. The way it works is you “seed” a “station” with a song or artist (or several) and Pandora plays music by that artist and other tracks that are “like” that song or artist. What constitutes “like” is determined by the algorithms of the Music Genome Project. It works incredibly well (at least for me). Feel like a little Kirsty MacColl, there it is. Feeling more like a little Clinic, there you go. Feeling like…well, you get the idea. And by seeding with several artists, you can get a more eclectic mix. Personally, I find the results of seeding with only a single artist a little bit of “too much the same”, which I guess is a testament to the accuracy of the algorithms. And if Pandora picks a song you don't like, you can give it a “thumbs down” to remove it from that station. Five stars!