I mentioned this to a Division member at the Leadership Summit and he said I should blog about it, so I am.
I have tried several Internet radio stations over the years and last fall got a tip about Pandora Radio from someone on Twitter. (See...Twitter can be useful!) Pandora Radio allows you to build your own "stations" and then share those stations with your friends. You start by telling it the name of your favorite artist or song. Pandora then uses that information to play a song that it thinks you will like. If it has access to music from that specific artist (or the specific song you entered), it will play that. Otherwise, it uses its "intelligence" to pick something similar. If you like that song, then it will begin playing songs that have similar qualities. As songs play, you can vote on them (like/dislike) as well as tell Pandora additional artists whose work you like. As you use Pandora and tell it your likes, the station you have created is able to grow.
Of course, you can create more than one station. Right now, I have four stations based on the music of:
- James Taylor
- Chicago
- Brian Setzer
- The Brian Setzer Orchestra
At the moment, I'm playing the James Taylor station a lot and I must admit that it now as a wide variety of music in it!
To share a station with a friend, you have to send them an email message from Pandora. So if anyone wants to hear my James Taylor station, send a message to me at hurst at hurstassociates.com and put Pandora in the subject.
I'm using Pandora for free, but there is a fee-based version. For $36/year, you can listen to Pandora on Sprint phones or in-home with specific hardware. And there are no ads.
If you want to think green, consider this...Pandora is using your Internet connection and PC. It is not drawing any additional power in your office, so using it instead of a radio is saving energy.
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