Pandora's Box

Pandora radio is the shit, I've got it on now and like all day as I'm at my comp or just around the apt, which has been too much lately on account of the rain mostly.

From a design point of view Pandora is sublimely simple, and is uncanny at predicting what music I like. Well to start they draw from your facebook favs (if you let it) so they play artists that are on there and also stuff that you might like. It's probably an algorithm like netflix has (people who liked THIS also like THIS; I don't think that computers can listen to music and know what is similer yet). And like netflix you train it, by voting up or down for whatever's playing. BTW if you vote down it skips the track, another correct design choice that seems obvious but many others would have you click skip after you vote no.

Typing an artists name and voting yes or no are the main way you influence what plays. No specific tracks can be requested and no creating playlists, AND no repeating or skipping backwards, at least not with the free version I have. At some point it dosn't let you vote and skip anymore unless you subscribe; clever.