Whew! Pandora’s still alive, and now on Chumby
Pandora unleashes a torrent of music that outsmarts iTunes Genius in the form of a never-ending playlist that magically knows exactly what you want to hear. It’s an outright travesty we haven’t mentioned Pandora here before, but better late than never. And we’re especially delighted that we don’t have to write Pandora’s eulogy since Congress saved it from the dead pool last week. Hallelujah.
Pandora is like a jukebox with a wicked intelligence that learns your musical tastes while you listen, then selects new music to play based on what it knows about your preferences. It’s no coincidence that Pandora is the most downloaded iPhone app in the App Store. It is absolutely amazing and a must-have on any iPhone or iPod touch, or even on the Chumby.
If you’re lucky enough to own a Chumby, you can now use Pandora on that cute and cuddly internet touch device. What’s Chumby, you ask? Chumby is what happens when an iPod touch and a bean bag chair spend a weekend in Vegas. You can read our post about Chumby to see why you should have one in your home or on your desk. And now with Pandora, Chumby streams your saved radio stations.
To use Pandora on the iPhone, you type in the name of an artist or song that you are in the mood to listen to. Pandora then finds similar music based on a variety of attributes like rhythm, harmony, instrumentation, vocals, lyrics, and more. There’s over 400 attributes in all, culled over a century of scanned music. As you listen to each song you simply rate it with a thumbs up, or down. Pandora then uses your ratings to refine the music it recommends to you. Pandora is a great way to discover new music or artists.
Pandora realizes everyone has different tastes in music, depending on their mood or environment. You can create different stations for your varied preferences. You could, for instance, have one station for head-banging and another for elevator music. It’s all up to you. You can save as many stations as your heart desires. The Pandora iPhone app conveniently links songs to the iTunes Store so that with a single tap you can purchase and download any music you want to own. You can also share Pandora stations, songs, or artists with your friends.
Pandora is a free download from the App Store, which is amazing in itself considering the gigantic database of copyrighted music available for you. Only recently has Pandora begun to subsidize its business with advertising to cover the rising cost of music royalties. These royalties almost put Pandora, and most other internet radio stations, completely out of business two weeks ago. Pandora had one foot in the coffin when Congress passed the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008, authored by Representative Howard Berman (D-CA). This ensured that royalty fees would not rise to a level that webcasters could not sustain. This means artists get their music to us, and we get to listen for free on our iPhones, iPod touches, and yes, even Chumby. Thank you, Mr. Berman!
- Pandora [web]
- Pandora for iPhone and iPod touch [app store]
- Chumby [web]
Add a comment (2 so far)
pandora was always alive
I love Pandora, but I wouldn’t say it knows “exactly” what one wants to hear. In fact, the best way to make a station that plays more of what you like is to manually add artists to the station you create, and to hit the thumbs down button when Pandora chooses the stuff that isn’t “exactly” what you want. Still is a great app, though.