Breaking free from the playlist

Nice try, Apple.

Lately when we're working at the VO (our office), we seem to be listening to Pandora a lot. Since we're primarily an office of student workers, Pandora gives us the ability to add more variability to our work playlist then just one person's iPod can provide.

For those of you unfamiliar with Pandora, it's know as the Music Genome Project (similar to the Human Genome Project). One simply puts in a song or artist they like and the website then analyzes over 400 different musical attributes (riffs, lyrics, vocals, etc.) of the song of your choice. After a few seconds of waiting, Pandora generates a online radio station that plays songs of similar interest. Some of you might try and suggest that isn't it a play on iTunes Genius Sidebar?

No.

Pandora was launched in 2006, whereas Genius didnt come out until the iTunes 8 release in September of 2008. Whereas Genius does generate a playlist of songs you already have in your music library, it also encourages you to purchase select songs on iTunes, a marketing ploy to increase Apple profits and a computer slowing program. Genius is also only limited to the computer of which your music library is on whereas Pandora can be accessed via any internet-connecting computer (are there non-internet-connecting computers now?).

So Apple, we give you an A+ on innovation for the iPod and iTunes, but a fail for Genius.

-S