Customized Radio
Technology has changed the way we listen to music. New gadgets such as MP3s and IPods have replaced in many cases the “old” CD players. At home, many people download music from the Internet, and they are able to put together complete collections of their favorite artists.
But today I want to talk about a different tool that I particularly enjoy: Yahoo Music Launch Cast Radio. It’s like having your own DJ at home, who plays the music you like! The system offers the possibility of rating songs, artists, and albums according to your taste, with a huge database to choose from! Launch Cast will also play songs it “assumes” you must like, based on your previous ratings. But if you don’t like those suggested songs you can skip them and/or “ban” them.
In my case, I have become a fan of Aretha Franklin and Louis Armstrong, not having even one record of them at home! I also enjoy, for example, Woody Allen monologues as a stand up comic.
The free version of Launch Cast has a limit in the number of songs per month you can listen to, but that limit is pretty high. One disadvantage of the system is that the commercials they repeat from time to time are pretty annoying.
There is a similar service called Pandora which I still have to experiment more with, before giving my opinion.
2 Responses to “Customized Radio”
1 Luosen 25 October 2006 @ 4:22 pm
I’d say Pandora is better, judging by your description of the yahoo version. There are no commercials in Pandora, you can listen to as many songs as you like (I think). One of the cons is that you can only skip a limited amount of songs (if you don’t like them) per hour.
Nevertheless, I have to say I lost interest in this radio quite fast. I guess I’ll stick to my MP3s and occasional “old-fashioned” online radio stations.
2 Andres 25 October 2006 @ 5:51 pm
Thanks for the input! I think I will have to try Pandora soon!
I don’t have much experience with “old-fashioned” online radio stations. They are probably great but I think that in general they stick to one genre. What I like about Launch Cast is the diversity of the music. One Brazilian song, then a Jazz song, then an 80’s song, then a movie song, then a Frank Sinatra song, and so on…
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