mindreaders

While listening to my former colleague's NPR radio show, The Works, I heard an interview with the founder of a Web site called Pandora. Ok, this thing is seriously cool, though it will suck time before you can say boo.

Here is what it does. You go to the Web site and give it the name of a song or an artist. It uses a series of algorithms to determine what other music you might like based on the characteristics of the song (tone, speed, vocal quality, vamping, guitar riffs, electronics, etc). You give the song a thumbs up or down. If you like what they play, that choice will guide the next choice of songs. For example, when asked why it's playing Roxy Music's Take a Chance With Me, a song I do like very much, it says the following: "Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features mellow rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mixed minor and major key tonality, a smooth male lead vocalist and many other similarities identified in the music genome project."

My choice of This Must be the Place (Naive Melody) by the Talking Heads led to selections by Roxy Music, Madonna, Duran Duran, Loverboy, OMD, Big Audio Dynamite, The Cure, Smashing Pumpkins, and others. Ok, it did pick out Phil Collins and Genesis, which I hate, but I used to like them so I guess I'll let them off the hook on that one.

I have no idea how they'll make money (ad revenue model) and since they have to pay royalties on the songs when they play them, I can't imagine that they'll make it. I'm pulling for them, though. Cool stuff.