Pandora Is for Lovers . . .
(of Listening Advisory)

This might be self-indulgent, but I'm gonna wax prosaic on the beauty of Pandora for a touch. Jaina mentioned it in the last post, but I want to give it it's own segment, because it deserves it.

Think of Pandora as automatic "reader's advisory" for music. You can show customers how to cross-reference albums they like with our library catalog, just like they would with a reader's advisory database.

How to use it:
1. Go to Pandora.com.
2. Work with the helpful Flash tutorial to get started. (Free with registration - it's very easy.)
3. Create personalized "radio stations" centered around artists you already love.
4. Listen.
5. Rate the music "thumbs up", "thumbs down", etc. to fine tune.
6. See whether the album is available in the library catalog.

(The service automatically connects to Amazon and a few other purchasing options, as well.)

Members of the Music Genome Project have analyzed songs according to dozens of qualities like: tempo, style, key, etc., and the results are surprisingly useful. I find several fun new artists every time I listen.

From Wikipedia: "Since the algorithm selects songs on the basis of musical features, rather than artist popularity or record sales, many users have lauded Pandora for its ability to 'recommend' unfamiliar songs that fit a user's preferences."

Like many resources -- you really have to just play around with it to appreciate the cool-factor.