Nice piece on Pandora, the Oakland-based online radio service, in Sunday’s New York Times’ Magazine. The Song Decoders, written by Rob Walker, reveals the dot-com start-up’s hungry beginnings, the president’s (musician, Tim Westergren) thoughts on collaborative filtering and social networks, and what I think is the beauty of Pandora, The Music Genome Project.
Walker states that many of the Pandora users he interviewed for this piece did not know of the Genome Project. It’s this incredible human-based system of codifying music that drew me to Pandora and it’s why I’ve been an avid fan and promoter since that first listen. Recording the DNA of a music track. Mapping it to thousands of other tracks. Then letting the computer do the rest has made for true 21st century radio.
Listen here if you’ve never tried. Keep it up if you’re a listener. This intelligent and entertaining merge of music and methodology deserves the support. Your ears will thank you.
I agree and listen to Pandora when I want a specific type of music. Never knew how it happened, but you are right, my ears like it.