Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Music Genome Project

Every once in awhile, I run into a website or idea that is so cool I feel compelled to share it. This is one of those times. I have to thank Zebra Sounds (one of my favorite blogs) for alerting me to it.

Basically, it is a free website that came up with the idea in 2000 to categorize music according to its characteristics (genes). You then select a singer, group or song to start a station. It then streams music based on this. You can make as many stations as you like.

But, it's much easier to just read the site. Definitely have to have a broadband connection.

www.pandora.com

For the free version there is a limit for monthly listening that I have hit a few times (I listen while working and while gaming at home). At that point you are asked to pay the monthly fee or to stop listening. I felt kind of weird about that, since I am only listening to their site for two reasons. The first, I like to discover new bands, being a musician myself. The second, I enjoy feeling like I am helping a "start-up". Their ads pay for their service and the ads are periodic, meaning that the more I listen, the more the ads are played. If I listen an extra 20 hours per month that is basically more money for them. This prompted me to go right back to using WinAmp to shuffle my collection. I recently found Slacker.com , which is similar to Pandora but I love the interface and the wealth of options available on there. It is free for unlimited use (I haven't hit any cap yet) and I have gone so far as to listen on my phone nearly all day some days. It is a much better experience for me.

Paul, the start up probably only get paid by cost per click like most add supported websites. But, they are charged for every song you play from them. At some number of songs without clicks you stop being profitable and this is the choice they've made to stay in business. I got an email telling me I would probably hit the limit and explaining the situation. Since, IIRC, the cost to keep listening is only a few dollars it's a good deal for me.

Yall should also know about www.grooveshark.com for when you want to listen to a certain song. It's like YouTube for music. Pandora's major competitor is www.last.fm, but I don't like it as much as Pandora, it isn't as simple and direct.

I was certain that for displaying the ads they made a certain amount and that for a "click" they earned extra. You also forgot about audio ads. Similar to the video ads on streaming video news sites such as MSN. I understand that they need to make money to run the service, as they are charged per play. But explain to me how so many websites can have a staff that gets paid on advertisements on their site. Should they use hidden cookies that are difficult to get rid of, and if you visit their site more than 2 times a week you need to pay for the content? How does YouTube make money? Or Google? They could still do this for free. If they don't they will likely fail to someone that will be able to. Monetization of streaming audio is gaining steam, and people want more options and everyone wants the mixture of cheap, useful, and easy.

That's a good point about the audio and video adds they show, but overall I think the heaviest users just don't make them enough money. I understand google makes money because it's there when people are already searching for things to buy, but I don't think YouTube is making money yet (http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE56F75P20090717) If you have an account I think you get 40 hrs/mo before they ask for a few dollars for the rest of the month. Since it they claim they don't rope you into the following months it looks like the right choice until the music industry figures things out.

I still prefer the Slacker interface and, as I said, I have not hit a cap with them yet on the free version.

Those are cool sites. I will check them out as well.

I will say when you look at the head people at Pandora, they need to be making a lot of money. They have a lot of heavyweights there.

Paul, you would know much more about this than I. And, I haven't looked at Slacker for long. Looked pretty cool, though. But, my guess is that Slacker and other sites will take your Green Day station and then put songs that are like that by using groups of the same genre so you have Sum 41 and Weezer, etc. whereas Pandora is supposed to use the genes of the music. Now, whether that works better or not, I don't know.

Good thread.

Well, Bert, here is my experience. I have a Stevie Ray Vaughan station on Pandora. They play a few of his songs, dispersed with Albert King, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and many other "blues" players. The trouble is that they sound nothing like him. So I put the good old thumbs down for them, and keep listening. They get closer, but they don't add enough people like him, and try to give me too wide a variety to listen to. If I want variety I will create a new station.

Now in Slacker I can ban artists and love artists in such a way that on my stations (Tommy Emmanuel_1 as an example) I can pick out of a list of artists which ones I like. I can also choose which songs and ban songs I don't like. The choice is now up to me and not whomever sorted through the music's genes.

In the end, I listen for different things than many people. I am a guitarist and, as such, listen to certain things in the music, and some things I like in a different way than most people. I hold nothing against them. However, I still feel that I get more of the music I like through Slacker, and less songs that I want to skip.

Paul,

I have registered with Slacker and paid for a year. (I can't deal with the ads especially the type of ads they have for even a day )

It's a lot to take in at first. I suppose I will use both. I didn't realize there were so many options out there.

Haha, I thought I was bad about ads! I use UberTwitter on my Blackberry and it is ad supported and I thought about paying to not have the ads, but I have been able to just look past them. For Slacker I usually don't notice the audio ones much. Free stuff is worth it to me for now. Maybe at some point they will annoy me enough to make me want to pay, but I am not quite there yet!

Oh and by the way... there is a 7 day free trial...

Not a musician. Not an audiophile. Just a casual listener. And can't speak to other services. But the $36 for Pandora is worth every penny. Feed a few songs or artists, and let it roll. No ads, no obnoxious DJs, no endless repetition, and no blaring stylistic departures (and if occasionaly its a bit of a stlyistic stretch, the thumbs down helps refine its choices). And we get to hear music that is enjoyable but not likely to be purchased. Great for "white noise" music while working.

iTunes also has a great free option. Open iTunes, click on "Radio" for hundreds of streaming internet stations--some good, some not so much. I particularly like Puget Sound Radio, great feel-good background music, inexplicably found under Golden Oldies. (Joplin is singing "Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz...)