What if Wikipedia could administer a teasing little mind virus which, during your blessed moments of idleness, would say things like “red blood cells are pretty crazy, dude….” in just that way that would make you need to check Wikipedia right now?
That’s what Pandora does, and that’s pretty much their business model. Its little algorithm takes but 30-50 minutes to zero in on that one band or song that it knows that you don’t. And then you can just go find out about them, right now, and learn and be satisfied.
And so you keep going back and back. To their ads and everything.
Later: Oh yea and it knows what you don’t like too. It puts on bad songs every once in a while to get you back to skip them. I just know it.
And Later: Oh and apparently coming to an end?
This whole pandora site sort of freaks me out, althoe I haven’t tried it. What happened to searching through record bins looking for cheap gems, and following your own strange music muse to find new stuff. It just seems to me that having a computer do it for you closes the door to all the weird crap you find by exploring music in your own. Call me old-fashoned but I’ve always considered the hunt a big part of what makes being a music fan fun. Although I do credit the internet for expanding the horizons of people that aren’t interested in putting in the time and effort.