Friday, June 30, 2006

Pandora online music

Music, on of the things I learned to love actually just a since a couple of months. This might sound strange but it is true. I listened to music, I have listened to gabber music back in school, I have listened to rock and hard rock somewhere more down the line but in all that time I was just listening. I could not state that I was found of a particular kind of music. I just liked a certain kind of music during some time and besides that I listened to everything that was playing on the radio. However since a couple of months I have discovered the Pandora website where you can listen to music you like for free the entire day.

As a developer you tend to like to lock out the rest of the world and be with the code you are working on. This can be hard if you are in an environment where there is a lot of background noise. A headphone is one of the basic things you will need than. During some time I was transporting CD’s and MP3’s from home to my work however this was becoming some boring due to the fact that my collection was not that big.

Pandora was the solution and also brought a new problem to be solved. The principle of Pandora is that you add some bands or songs you like and that the system will provide you with music that equals this kind of music. You can tell per song if you like it or not and the system will adapt to your personal taste. The problem I was facing was that I did not know what kind of music I did like. I started out with putting in some bands I already had in my MP3 collection. Using the system now for a couple of months it turns out that I am listening to bands I never heard about but who I really like.

The intention of Pandora is that people can listen to music they like and Pandora will advise you on some possible new bands in the hope you will start buying the CD’s. I have to say that this tactic is working really well. I have not bought a single CD for years but now I am starting to buy CD’s again. Even do I am still searching for a good online store where I can buy CD’s for a reasonable price this is bringing me back to legitimately buy music.

I have seen other options to listen to music online for free or a small price, think iTunes, but until now I think I will stick to the Pandora solution.

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