Saturday, May 27, 2006

Pandora

I just registered for the free version of Pandora, a music streaming service. It doesn't require a standalone player. It uses Flash and plays in a browser, so it's a cross-platform solution (Windows, Mac, Linux). I heard about it on the Inside the Net podcast #6.

All of the other streaming stations base what they play on songs that you've rated. If you've rated a particular song. they look at other users who like that song and recommend songs that those people like. Pandora is a completely different service. It grew out of The Music Genome Project. They have 40 musicians who listen to music critically, and map hundreds of characteristics of each song. It then suggests other songs that are characteristically similar to the song that you give it to start.

Once music is playing, you can click on the album cover to get the menu shown here.

Pandora Menu Screenshot

"Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the music universe."

2 comments:

BigMac said...

This is very cool. I have just one question though. How are they allowed to actually stream that music? Shouldn't the labels be upset about this free streaming?

Eric Schulz said...

1. They are 100% DMCA compliant.
2. They pay all the music publishing companies (ASCAP, BMI)
3. Because of 1 and 2, the recod companies are overjoyed that they now have a place that people can hear new artists (that role used to be filled by Radio, which now has ridiculously small playlists)