I can't remember where I actually first clicked over to this new (currently invite only) music recommendation service called Pandora, but I do remember it first being mentioned as new kid on the block competition for Last.fm (a service which has promise quite a bit of traction with the AudioScrobbler plugin, but which consistently infuriates me.)
Well, I requested and received an invite so I was eager to see what all the buzz was about. My first impressions were that while the interface was nice it seemed somewhat overly simplistic and not too unlike many other available music recommendation engines.
However Pandora is fundamentally different. It does not base its recommendations on like artists or strict genres or even other similar listeners habits; rather the Music Genome Project, does song by song analysis of a variety of musical features, regardless or genre or past classification etc.
From their homepage "This is a labor of love - 20 minutes per song spent capturing everything from melody, harmony and form, to instrumentation, rhythm, and vocal performance - literally hundreds of musical attributes for every composition. The goal? To understand what makes each song special so we can help you find others that are similar."
The service delivers as promised!
If your interested in an invite I have a few, but you might try their homepage as they might not being to restrictive right now.
Other folks discussing Pandora:
TechCrunch from the comments, "Pandora is different. Way different. You pick an artist or song, it analyzes the music from a technical standpoint and starts playing similar music. You can refine the channel by removing certain artists/songs, adding new artists, etc., until the damn thing just plays exactly what you want to hear. I’ve been using it for hours now and I have to say I love it more now than I did when I wrote the profile yesterday."
Somehow, in my move over to Mozilla, your blog fell off of my regular visit list. How did this happen?! I can't believe it's been so long since I've been here. If I'd been back earlier, I would have known about Pandora since August? Blast! I just heard about it from a friend a couple of days ago, and instantly knew Ben would love it. And he does. I love that they feature so many obscure bands, and the approach *is* really amazing and different. You early adopter you. : )
Posted by: Jessica | February 01, 2006 at 11:51 PM