Web 2.0 List, Pandora

This week my assignment is to pick a web 2.0 application and write about what it does and how it works. At first I thought, "I'll just make a big list." But in true internet fashion, I found a really big list made by someone else.

It's a fairly extensive list with categories. There's always the caveat that this is someone else's idea of what constitutes a web 2.0 app, but I saw plenty of regulars on it (facebook, livejournal, etc.)

Pandora is one of my favorites and jumped out at me immediately. I don't get to listen to Pandora very often because it's blocked at work, but I'm always on the lookout for new tunes. It looks like Pandora is now available on mobile phones if you have AT&T or Sprint. I have AT&T so this could be good.

I started playing around with the recommendations Pandora makes and noticed that if I give it Britney Spears, it comes back with "The Teddybears." The Teddybears are a Swedish group from the early 90's who wear giant stuffed bear heads when they perform. I was too busy laughing to notice whether or not the music is at all similar. Perhaps Pandora doesn't quite have recommendations squared away.

After giving Pandora about a week, I eventually found a bug. When I tried to create a station for the band !!! (yes, that's really their name, pronounced chk chk chk) I kept getting gospel tunes. Even though I haven't heard that many of their songs, I could tell that this was not right so I emailed their support. Pandora can't handle a query string made up of punctuation marks.

Esoteric band names aside, Pandora works pretty well. Their help file explains a lot about their technology and how to use the web site. It looks like they start with a basic database query, but also generate metrics about a song based on how many other users liked and whether they thought it fit with the station.

Interestingly, creating a station based on a song is more likely to yield songs with the same type of sound than creating a station based on an artist. I guess that's because an artist can have many phases in their career.

There are other Web 2.0 social music apps. This article from Techcrunch talks about them.