Update - Maybe even better?

In case you missed the great tip from Aaron in the comments of the last post, apparently Pandora has some competition.  Last.fm has a very similar application to Pandora.  Same idea - you enter your favorite groups or artists and they create customizable playlists.  The one advantage I see is that with Last.fm, you can create a widget to embed the Last.fm player on your website or blog and your most recent playlist will play on your blog.  That's a neat feature.  I haven't dug into the licensing of that player yet, so I'm not sure if you can use it on commercial site (read - one with advertising), but I would guess it will be fine on a personal site/blog. UPDATE: It turns out the widget only plays a sample of the songs you listen to, not the entire thing - bummer!

I'm going to compare the two over the next few days and see if I prefer the playlist from one over the other. Either way, competition only means that these applications will get better which is great for all of us.

Thanks Aaron for the heads up.  If you appreciate the tip, check out his blog  - Hot, Loud and Dangerous.  Maybe that will get him posting again - wink, wink!

Have you Pandora'd?

I know I'm not the coolest kid in town who knows all the latest technology available, I mean I was one of the last 5 people on Earth to join Facebook. Maybe I'm farther out of the loop than I thought, but the wife just tipped me off to one of the coolest things to ever hit the internet.

The biggest complaint I have in Charlottesville is that all the radio stations sound exactly the same. Clear Channel came in, who knows how many years ago, bought up all the stations, converted them to their formulaic style, and ruined it for me. No offense to Clear Channel - they make money at what they do, I just hate it :) This eventually led me to purchase a Sirius Satellite Radio which is awesome, but I only have a radio for the car, and if the kids are with me, that means Radio Disney (makes me want to blow my brains out) which is ok, but you can only dance the Hoe Down Throwdown so many times.

Of course, I can always listen to my CDs and MP3s on my laptop, but then I have to either load up my hard drive with files and create play lists, or listen to the same CD. I prefer a little more variety and a lot less work.

But yesterday, M heard about the greatest website - Pandora.  Pandora is an internet radio station that you customize to the type of music you prefer.  When you first access the sute, they ask you for your favorite song or artist.  Within seconds, they've generated a new "station" that plays only songs from the same genre with similar sound, vocal, and instrumental qualities!  How cool is that.

So what happens if you want to listen to another genre?  Simply add a new station - you can have up to 100 different stations.

Don't like one of the songs?  Give it a thumbs down and it will never play again on that station.

Don't like the artist?  Give them a thumbs down on two consecutive songs and he/she's history!

There are a few licensing restrictions that Pandora must comply with:

You can only skip 6 songs an hour.  They can only play each artist four times in a three hour block.  You can't rewind or choose a song on demand and it is only available in the US, but those are small prices to pay for customized radio with artist/song info.

For me, here's another great benefit - have you ever had a disagreement with a friend over the lyrics of a song?  Well with Pandora, the lyrics are available while you listen.  That should clear up any long running bets!

I hope you'll check it out.  I figure the more free subscribers there are, the more likely it is that the advertisers will keep coming back to Pandora and keep the site free.