I think I learned yesterday a little bit about how Pandora chooses the music you like. It apparently happens when computers, aided by people, listen to what you listen to, whir it through the stuff that’s inside those computers (and people, I guess), and spits it out to you as your own playlist and even as your very own radio station which going forward will play only music you like based on what you’ve liked in the past.
You can even have more than one personal radio station...one guy said he had a hundred of them. I don’t know if he likes only one kind of music so they all play the same kinds of songs, or if he likes a hundred kinds of music (I lose count at about a dozen, but I’m old), each of them with its own station. My mind is blown.
Anyway, the question I have is are people letting someone or something else choose the music they will like in the future? That seems very strange to me. Are they afraid they might–God forbid!–have to listen to something they don’t immediately like? I have been used to choosing what I like and don’t like, and have to admit my prejudices don’t allow me to spend a lot of energy trying to listen to things I am sure I will never like. But that’s me deciding, not some geek presiding over geek equipment in Silicon Valley.
I learned all this because Apple is about to get into the same business as Pandora. A complex extension of what iTunes does already, I guess, in creating “Genius” mixes. Sounds far removed from Steve Jobs’ celebrated creative spirit. Strange world we are hurtling toward.
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