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January 3, 2006
Playing Pandora while (still) waiting for last.fm
I've only made it 1/6 of the way to the minimum 300 songs last.fm requires to make personal recommendations. I can still use the "Similar Bands" station feature (which I'm finding is much more enjoyable than I thought--doesn't require as much effort as surfing iTMS, so I can do it while working on something else), but I'm still anxious to see what recommendations they make based on my listening habits.
Doesn't help that I sold my iPod (4G click) a few weeks ago, so my iTunes listening has dropped significantly. Also last.fm has been down for several days (though iScrobbler did just fine queuing my iTunes activity).
In the mean-time, I've been playing around with Pandora. It has some nice feature differences from last.fm:
- browser-based (looks like a Flash app), so doesn't require an app install like last.fm
- I can move my account around to different computers (well, I could with last.fm with a software install)
- Pandora's station list is a bit more elegant than last.fm's "History", and Pandora refine a station by adding multiple artists/songs
- both support station sharing, each with a slight differentation: last.fm supports station tagging (i.e. "power metal" or "instrumental") and Pandora lets you share a station with a friend, or listen to a friend's station
Probably the biggest differentator is that Pandora developed from the Music Genome Project, which in theory should make Pandora a lot better at recommending music based on your current favorites. Would be interesting to do a comparison of last.fm vs Pandora recommendations. My experience listening to each for 2 days is that Pandora recommendations are much better. Maybe once I make it through the minimum requirements last.fm will make better recommendations.
Hopefully Apple will take notice and pick one of these companies up to fill the gap in iTMS recommendations.
Posted by pete at January 3, 2006 1:35 PM