JasonBayer.com

I’ve been pretty inactive on the blog lately, so I’m trying to get back into the groove.  I’ve been testing out some new technology on the web recently so I thought that would be a good place to start.  I recently purchased an iPhone 3G and have been exploring some of the apps from the Apple App Store.  One of the coolest apps that I’ve discovered is a streaming music service called Pandora.

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you enjoy the music you already know, and to help you discover new music you might like.

It’s powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Just tell Pandora one of your favorite songs or artists and it will create a streaming station to explore that part of the musical universe.  For example, to create a new station on the iPhone you simple click the Create New Station button and type in your favorite artist’s name.  I’ll choose ColdPlay for this example… select the artist’s name from the list and your iPhone will immediately start streaming music from this artist!  It will then start streaming music from other artists with similar styles, in effect, creating your own radio station from that genre of music.  Pretty cool!  You can then build a library of artist stations which you can choose to listen to on-demand.  One other cool feature is the ability to rate the music that Pandora selects, enabling you to give it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

And the coolest thing about Pandora is that not only is it a free app for the iPhone, but it also available through your web browser at www.pandora.com or even via your home audio system with the help of a Squeezebox Network Music System or similar device.

I hope that you enjoy Pandora… I’ve found it a really cool way to listen to my favorite bands on the go without having to load it on my iPhone as well as for discovering new music.  I’d be interested to know what you think, so feel free to leave me a comment!