There are few things in this world that I love more than music… and that’s why I truly enjoy the site Pandora. Pandora is a musical and scientific marvel; it is an extremely intuitive and free automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. If you’re tired of the same ol’ stale FM radio dial then Pandora is the place for you. This amazing service will introduce you to hundreds of musical acts you’ll love even though you have no clue who they are.
The Music Genome Project uses 400 distinct attributes and 2,000 focus traits to scientifically and mathematically break songs down… so it recommends similar sounds and tempos to you on the next play. You simply enter a song or artist into the Pandora player and it creates a channel for that artist or song. From there it automatically starts playing a song which you can give thumbs up or thumbs down… and it works its magic from there.
Pandora recently released along with the launch of the new iPhone 3G a mobile application that allows you to stream music directly to your phone. This service is also free and is currently compatible with the Sprint and AT&T mobile networks… although you can use it with just about any cell phone with a data plan if you know where to look. I haven’t had a chance to try it out on my phone as of yet but from what I’ve read the Pandora iPhone application is great.
Nothing in life is free, so what’s the catch? Thankfully there really isn’t a catch. The service is free but does have ads that rotate every time you vote for a song. The player also links directly to Amazon and iTunes profiles where you can purchase the track being played, but other than that it is free. You don’t even have to create a profile, but if you do you can share your stations with your friends and vice versa.
Pandora has made my daily music listening habits extremely easy. I no longer have to carry around a ton of songs on my iPhone, or a thumb or portable drive full of tunes. I can simply log onto Pandora, hit play and have fresh music the entire work day… you can’t beat that. I’ve tried similar services like Last.fm in the past but they don’t hold a stick with the excellent recommendation services that Pandora offers.
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[...] first wrote about Pandora about a year and a half ago, and since that time the service has absolutely exploded. If you like music and use the internet [...]