pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

[brotherS]

Thanks to ydrAh in https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1849.0 I discovered http://www.pandora.com/

WOW!!! This really IS Internet radio for EVERY taste!

Based on "The Music Genome Project" (read http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml for more details) you will choose one artist you like and will be presented with similar artists.

There were several services that gave you a list of similar artists before, but pandora.com is way better: it automatically creates your own personal radio station(s)! Check the screenshots:



On the first screenshot, (1) brings you to the "Favorite Songs" page I'll discuss further down. (2) allows you to 'move' the player out of the browser (works in IE and Firefox) - scroll images to the very right if you use a low resolution:

pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

On the next screenshot, you see the player now in an external window:
(1) Your stations - you can just click "Create a New Station" to do so
(2) Showing "thumbs up" - meaning that I rated the tune (explanation further below)
(3) Showing album covers (if available)
(4) Here you can set the volume, pause the playing stream (try that with a regular station!) and skip to the next title
(5) The "Guide Us" button will be explained further below

pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

The "Guide Us" button will show you the following, where you are able to influence the tunes that will be played by rating them (thumb up or down), you also can get info about "why is this song playing" and add more kinds of music to that station:

pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

When you not click the "Guide Us" button but instead left-click one of the displayed album covers, you'll get to see the following menu, where you - among other things - also can rate the tune:

pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

One more screenshot - this one shows you the "Favorite Songs" page I mentioned at the first screenshot:
(1) Clicking on an artist name here will bring you to the famous http://www.allmusic.com site, which has LOTS of info about virtually every artist
(2) Link to the album @ Amazon
(3) Link to buy the song @ iTunes

pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

Convinced? Visit http://www.pandora.com/ yourself! Remember, it's free!

Not convinced? Please reply, tell me why not.

Disclaimer: No, I'm neither related to pandora nor do I benefit when you sign up there. I just like great sotware and services! By the way, did you read https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1167.0 yet?

[mouser]

ok i just signed up - pretty damn slick and pretty damn cool.

note: the free version runs (visual only?) ads in the browser, which is not too bad.  paying to remove the ads seem expensive to me ($36 a year), not sure how many people going to take them up on it.

[brotherS]

Yeah, the ads are not too bad. But I think you are right, they may need to offer more benefits than just "no ads" to get users to be willing to pay for that service. Maybe a less-than-perfect audio quality for free, and a great quality if you sign up?

[mouser]

i wouldnt be suprised if they dont get bought up by another music service in the near future..

[tsaint]

I bought a 3 month subscription some time ago now - it was nowhere near $36 - (hmmm ...maybe $36 /4). Anyway, not so long back they sent me an email saying because I was an early adopter, they'd change the 3 month sub to a FULL YEAR one at no cost. That was unsolicited. Needless to say, I was rapt

[mouser]

aw.. i love companies like that.

[brotherS]

Nice! Since we are all early adaptors here it would be great if they would offer that to all DC members

[Carol Haynes]

Looks very slick and nice but I couldn't find any classical music at all. I tried entering Beethoven Symphonies and all I got out was Jazz and Blues.

[momonan]

I had the same problem.   According to the FAQs, they haven't been able to figure out how to do classical music yet.  Instead, they recommend this station:  http://kuatfm.org/classical.cfm.  In spite of this, I'm super satisfied with the selections I've made (especially in the jazz vocalist area) -- and the new things I'm hearing that meet my preferences.

[vegas]

Thanks for thje link, really enjoying the music ATM (add Tequila)   Almost CD quality, yet better than the old spinner.com before Netscape/AOL took it over & disolved it into crappy quality XM/AOL radio streams
Live 365 can also be good too.  Back to the new years booze, peace to all of ya'z.  Check www.radioparadise.com for good tunes, also their listener review channel http://www.radioparadise.com/content.php?name=review&index=23485&op=ratesong&rating=false is good for lesser known tunes.

[mouser]

recent blog comparing pandora to another similar site last.fm:
http://www.stevekrau...pandora_and_las.html


[link from slashdot.org]

[jgpaiva]

I had to express my appreciation for this site. I'm only mad that my ISP is so bad, and have such low transfer limits

Pandora.com has a nice database (sure, there are lost of artist missing, but the best are there), and the audio quality is very good. It's just like listening to radio, but a high-quality radio fully customized by the user. And the adaptive selection is just perfect. If the second music you hear is not of your appreciation, you just mark it as a song you don't like, and the next one will surely be very close to what you are looking for. It didn't take me more that 4 refusals go get a perfect playlist, exactly what i wanted, and it even helped me in finding more artists on the music style i was looking for.
I sure recommend you take a look, at least try it, it's certain you'll love it

[db90h]

Ya want Internet Radio ....

A current Winamp offer is FREE XM internet radio. All XM stations. 

Download and install the free version of Winamp 5.x, browse the internet radio stations, and there ya go.

Enjoy!

[allen]

Heh . . . I'm listening to nothing but alphaville this morning and it is good.  Next up, Bruce Springstein, I think. 

[allen]

I was a bit skeptical, thought it would be fun to play with for a few minutes and that would be it -- but a few days later, I'm finding myself growing more fond of it as I go.

They're really onto something--keep surprising me.  My main station is primarily 80's and 80's esque synthpop/europop seeded originally by Alphaville, A-ha and Erasure.  What really amazes me is they throw in artists who I wouldn't consider obviously similiar -- who I do really like.  What it is becoming is a single station with impressive variety and very few tracks I dislike.  I have to force myself to leave it and create other stations for the sake of experimentation.

That said, I've had best results seeding stations with specific tracks rather than artists.  If an artist is fairly homogenous stylistically, alphaville or erasure or dan tyminsky, things stay pretty close but with artists whose style has had some variance over the years, the results can be really unpredictable.

As far as the price goes, it does seem a bit steep viewed as a single price -- but if you look at how it breaks down, I don't think it's particularly unreasonable.  3 bucks a month isn't bad, I pay more a month for things that I feel are really low-priced -- I just don't consider the annual fee (which still isn't unreasonable).  Whether or not I shell out any money does depend on the ads (I have yet to see any) and any other benefits they may (Seems like they'd have to) offer.  It's young, I'm sure more perks will materialize.

Buy in now, there's always the chance of getting grandfathered in later on -- wouldn't be the first web service to tip their hat to early adopters.

Thanks for the link, brotherS!

[jgpaiva]

If pandora was the best there was in music, opera has revolutionized it. The new opera9 supports widgets, but there's one widget that is particularly interesting!

I show you.. Pandora Radio Widget!
It can look like this:


or even as small as this:

[allen]

Awesome, the Pandora widget finally looks sexy! Last time I used it, it worked aurally but there were quite a few cosmetic, and some times clicky, problems -- thanks for reminding em to try it again!

Ack, correction, still having problems -- can you click the drop down arrow to edit a station? (Under "Your Stations") ? For me, it blinks -- doesn't keep focus, can't click it.  And I'm still seeing a lot of visual problems . . . I wonder if that's an Opera widget implementation shortcoming or the widget author . . .

[tsaint]

Ack, correction, still having problems -- can you click the drop down arrow to edit a station? (Under "Your Stations") ? For me, it blinks -- doesn't keep focus, can't click it.  And I'm still seeing a lot of visual problems . . . I wonder if that's an Opera widget implementation shortcoming or the widget author . . .

-allen (April 29, 2006, 08:18 AM)

Yep, it works for me just fine
tony

[allen]

Strange.  What build are you using?  I'll probably just stick to having a minimized pandora window

[jgpaiva]

Oh... Thanks allen for taking some of the fun of this widget away
It doesn't work correctly here either.
Still, i like it

[allen]

Hey, I didn't take the fun away -- I just noticed it wasn't there

[tsaint]

Strange.  What build are you using?  I'll probably just stick to having a minimized pandora window

-allen (April 29, 2006, 09:37 AM)

8367

[allen]

Huh. Me too.

[vamp07]

Pandora is awesome. I am huge fan of Launcast on yahoo but Pandora does such and incredible job of finding me new stuff I have never heard. I tend to listen to Pandora 99% of the time and go to Yahoo music for which I have a subscription when I hear something and want the whole album. Lately I am constantly going to yahoo. I cant keep up with all the stuff Pandora is pointing me to that I want to hear more of. Tonight I am really getting into "Collide"

[tsaint]

Huh. Me too.

-allen (April 29, 2006, 09:43 PM)

maybe its the widget build version that's the prob? There were changes made.