Thing #6 Pandora Radio

I chose to explore Pandora radio for thing #6. Pandora is a website that after creating an account using a valid email address, allows you to create radio stations that are tailored towards the type of music that you want to hear. Pandora does this by using the Music Genome Project a project determined like the human genome project to map the differences in music. This works by having the user simply pick a song, artist, or genre that they enjoy to listen to. The service then suggests songs that contain similar genomes and asks you to rate them as either thumbs up, or thumbs down. The more you rate songs the more the service learns about your tastes on that particular station and its suggestions will become more and more accurate.

After having used this service I can say that it is incredibly powerful in doing what it says it can do, find music that is similar to your tastes and play only music you enjoy. It works so well in fact, that while I was using it I was rather shocked by its accuracy in finding music that I have never heard of while still sounding eerily similar to what I wanted to listen to. My only dislikes of this tool would have to be the limited number of skips that you can use. It does not always work and individuals will always have songs that they hate. However, over time this becomes less of a burden as it continues to build toward your tastes. I do not see this service having much application in a classroom or library as it is not able to be completely controlled which would allow for inappropriate songs to play toward the wrong audience.

Check it out at www.pandora.com!