Techiebytes

I’ll admit it from time to time technology just bores me. I get burnt out and into a funk where nothing seems interesting. Then much like a child cleaning his room I sort through the old "Tech Toys" I had abandoned, and poof – I find something that catches my attention. This time the “poof” is Pandora.

Pandora is streaming Internet radio that allows you to build unlimited customized channels. Pandora then uses your channel settings to populate music using a fancy algorithm that compares over four hundred attributes of songs. The end-result is unlimited channels of musical items that interrelate and contain music that fits your particular tastes. Of course if the algorithm gets it wrong you can always vote specific songs out of your channel. Pandora also includes social feature such as channel sharing.

Pandora isn’t new to me: it’s included in my Internet favorites and in several of the presentations I give. I was rushing to build a "Jewels of the Internet Presentation" when I discovered Pandora. I didn’t take it much further than building a channel and letting it stream for a day. Pandora was then added to both the presentation, and my "Technology Toy Chest" for future investigation.

Recently I found myself bored out of my mind with nothing more than my Motorola Q in my hands. After sending about a hundred or so random tweets, I set my sites on browsing the web for new apps that could make the old phone a little more interesting. I entered http://www.pandora.com into the Q’s less than perfect web browser expecting a complete failure. Much to my surprise the phone responded with an option to install a Pandora mobile client.

The Pandora mobile client is available for the iPhone and Windows Mobile. It’s small, less than 800k and installed in under 30 seconds on my Verizon Moto Q9c. Set-up was simple: I simply entered my user information and my channels instantly appeared. Navigating the application was a breeze; even adding channels was a pleasant experience. Music quality was excellent and the application worked without buffers, stutters, or pauses.

Long story short, Pandora has come out of the "Toy Chest" and I find myself visiting the site on a daily basis. This is great example of Internet applications migrating to the mobile platform. I’m a huge music fan and having my tunes available anytime from anywhere makes Pandora a killer app for me.

If you haven’t checked out Pandora Internet radio give it a try, I’m positive it has something you’ll enjoy.

Filed under: Technology Tagged: | Entertainment, Internet, Mobile, Music, Pandora, Radio, Streaming