Emerging Technology 3: Internet Radio

For my third emerging technology I explored internet radio. I had never heard of internet radio until I responded to one of my classmate’s blogs about this emerging technology. Internet radio is the product of the Music Genome Project, in which tens of thousands of songs were analyzed and categorized according to their melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, arrangement, lyrics, and vocal harmony. This categorization is what allows websites like Pandora Radio, to create personalized radio stations. You simply type the name of an artist or song title, and the website searches for songs that match the first song you listened to. Instantly, a radio station is created to fit your style of music. The more artists or songs you enter into your station, the better suited your station will be. You can also select whether you like a song that Pandora has suggested or not. If you like it, it will remember the song and try to play others like it, thus personalizing your station ever more. If you don’t like it, then it won’t ever play that song again. It is a completely amazing technology! With each preference you list and with each song played, your station builds off of itself. It’s like the website functions on its own.
After I opened a free account, I started two different stations. One station was a soft guitar/piano genre (John Mayer, Gavin DeGraw, Jason Mraz, etc.), while the other was a soft alternative genre (Linkin Park, Hoobastank, Staind, etc.). I was amazed at how precisely Pandora pin pointed my taste in music. Instantly it began suggesting artists and songs that I loved and some I had never heard of before, but they completely fit my taste in music. I love that this website is free, that you can have multiple stations, you can save your results in your account, you don’t have to download anything, and that the songs play continuously.

Tips for using internet radio:

1) Create an account with your email and a password
2) Enter in multiple artists to obtain a more personal station
3) Create more than one station
4) You can access Pandora on any internet capable mobile phone

Like I said earlier, I already created an account with Pandora Radio and I will post a link to the site, but for obvious reasons, I cannot create a sample of this technology.

Pandora Radio