A Cool Toy

[firstfrost]

So, some number of years ago, I played around with one of those programs that claims "you tell us what music you like, and we'll suggest some other music that you might like." I dutifully input a whole bunch of things, and it told me (drum roll...) that I might like the Beatles.

Well, sure. Who doesn't like the Beatles, at least a little? (Okay, maybe harrock doesn't, as his Pop Music background is pretty minimal). But I didn't need to do work to have something tell me this! Maybe I'd like to try... orange juice, as a beverage! Or bread, as a novel new food!

Anyway. I've been playing around with Pandora: http://www.pandora.com and it's much closer to what I was imagining that long-ago program would be. You put in a song or two, and then it starts playing things it thinks are liking them. Actually playing them, not just saying "Maybe you'd like this thing, if you could hear it." How cool is that?

Comments

[visage.livejournal.com]

Launchcast also works from Yahoo Messenger, but for all I know that's really IE in disguise, and probably doesn't actually solve any problems. =)

Two points in pandora's favor that I've noticed so far: they look to have better support for "I want different stations on this account" and they seem to be trying to categorize why people like music, rather than just blindly playing the association game.