Yahoo is doing streaming audio now. I set my dad up with it (premium service is free with Yahoo! DSL) and he seems pretty happy. I finally set myself up with it and I like it a lot.
It is interesting, you rate songs, albums and artists and it learns what you like and do not like and it gives you a nice private audio stream. It also has the generic type stations. It is almost addictive, I spent 4 hours last night programming it. I put in about 700 ratings. It would start to play a song, I would rate the song, then open the album up and rate songs in the album then look what other people liked that liked particular songs. Then I would skip to the next song and start again.
I have very odd music tastes, I like a lot of the big hits from the 50s, some 60s, a few 70s, tons of early 80s, some later 80s, some 90s, and some contemporary. Plus odd bands like Basia and Chris Isaak.
I would sit there and think of a band, run rate a bunch of songs from them, then a song would start and would think of a bunch of new stuff to rate.
This morning I have pretty much just let it run on its own. I will rate songs as it plays them, but am not skipping like I did last night. I have been amazed at how good it is now of picking out what I like. Songs/Artists that I have forgotten about all together suddenly pop up and I have to run rate a bunch...
From a computer science perspective it is very interesting, it finds songs you might like by what songs you have rated that you like and matches your preferences against others that like songs that you like and looks what they have rated well that you have not rated yet.
Now if they just had a way to get this to the car!
It is interesting, you rate songs, albums and artists and it learns what you like and do not like and it gives you a nice private audio stream. It also has the generic type stations. It is almost addictive, I spent 4 hours last night programming it. I put in about 700 ratings. It would start to play a song, I would rate the song, then open the album up and rate songs in the album then look what other people liked that liked particular songs. Then I would skip to the next song and start again.
I have very odd music tastes, I like a lot of the big hits from the 50s, some 60s, a few 70s, tons of early 80s, some later 80s, some 90s, and some contemporary. Plus odd bands like Basia and Chris Isaak.
I would sit there and think of a band, run rate a bunch of songs from them, then a song would start and would think of a bunch of new stuff to rate.
This morning I have pretty much just let it run on its own. I will rate songs as it plays them, but am not skipping like I did last night. I have been amazed at how good it is now of picking out what I like. Songs/Artists that I have forgotten about all together suddenly pop up and I have to run rate a bunch...
From a computer science perspective it is very interesting, it finds songs you might like by what songs you have rated that you like and matches your preferences against others that like songs that you like and looks what they have rated well that you have not rated yet.
Now if they just had a way to get this to the car!
