This week I read on www.radioszene.de about the newest development regarding Pandora and international users. Only people with an IP from the US and Canada can now register due to legal restrictions. I had been thinking about getting registered there or at last.fm but hadn’t done so yet. Now I’ve been looking for other options and came across www.musicovery.com (via an article at www.netzwelt.de). The website looks a bit like a colourful remote control. You can click in a mood area (the 4 extremes are calm, energetic, dark and positive) or choose decades or genres. If you point at a genre, you can also click somewhere between the 4 moods. I tried it for a while but found it hard to find something that suited my taste. The “stations” that started playing had a lot of unknown songs and/or artists in them. Maybe it would have helped to disable “non Hit”. Ah well, I couldn’t be bothered much longer.
Right now I’m trying last.fm (don’t know if it will stop playing after a while when I’m not registered). I entered Robbie Williams and am listening to a mix that includes Queen, Oasis, Keane, Bryan Adams, Anastacia, Alanis Morissette, No Doubt, U2, Green Day, Maroon 5 etc. Nice enough for me. Maybe a bit too mainstream, but what can you expect when you enter Robbie? I would have thought they’d mix in a few lesser known artists. Hm.
Oh, and I also tried a web-only channel offered by a German radio station (RPR 1) that is called New Songs. Yes, I did get new songs, but interrupted by long commercial breaks and news. No thanks.
Another thing I found yesterday is www.gnoosic.com where you enter 3 artists you like and they suggest others you might like. For each artist you can choose between “like”, “don’t like” and “unknown”. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t offer audio samples. That is even sadder because the results you get include lots of unknown bands (at least to me). But at the end you get a summary with links to Amazon so you might find audio clips there.
So much for my experience with personalized online radio or whatever you want to call it.
As to me:
The weather is really hot at the mo and I don’t like it much.
My fave soccer team is in the national cup final which takes place in Berlin on Saturday. Keep your fingers crossed.
I have next week off and will probably go to Leipzig for a day to meet my best friend who I haven’t seen for a year.
As always: must. learn. to. make. links!
Right now I’m trying last.fm (don’t know if it will stop playing after a while when I’m not registered). I entered Robbie Williams and am listening to a mix that includes Queen, Oasis, Keane, Bryan Adams, Anastacia, Alanis Morissette, No Doubt, U2, Green Day, Maroon 5 etc. Nice enough for me. Maybe a bit too mainstream, but what can you expect when you enter Robbie? I would have thought they’d mix in a few lesser known artists. Hm.
Oh, and I also tried a web-only channel offered by a German radio station (RPR 1) that is called New Songs. Yes, I did get new songs, but interrupted by long commercial breaks and news. No thanks.
Another thing I found yesterday is www.gnoosic.com where you enter 3 artists you like and they suggest others you might like. For each artist you can choose between “like”, “don’t like” and “unknown”. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t offer audio samples. That is even sadder because the results you get include lots of unknown bands (at least to me). But at the end you get a summary with links to Amazon so you might find audio clips there.
So much for my experience with personalized online radio or whatever you want to call it.
As to me:
The weather is really hot at the mo and I don’t like it much.
My fave soccer team is in the national cup final which takes place in Berlin on Saturday. Keep your fingers crossed.
I have next week off and will probably go to Leipzig for a day to meet my best friend who I haven’t seen for a year.
As always: must. learn. to. make. links!
Sonja,
AntwortenLöschenAll Pandora listeners with IP addresses that can be tracked to Canadian locations have been informed that we can no longer use Pandora and will be blocked. There was real regret in the e-mail I received, as they have been valiantly attempting to get all the proper licensing for months. Unfortunately, they have been UNable to obtain said licensing, and so, as of May 16th, I could no longer enjoy personalized on-line radio. sigh.
Oh wow, that's bad. I read the letter to non-North-American users from a pretty cute guy at Pandora and I agree that he sounded sincerely sorry. He said in the letter that the user info will be stored in case the laws change and it becomes legal. I think there are ways to pretend you've got a US IP (proxies or something) but I don't know any details. I'm sure you can find instructions online. Or are you gonna try last.fm?
AntwortenLöschenI have surfed on over to last.fm, but I haven't found it as easy to use as Pandora. Time will tell.
AntwortenLöschenHi Sonja. Again I seem to be a "late-adopter" in internet trends. Never heard about personalized online radio. I always surf to www.shoutcast.com and choose one of the zillion streams there. The not knowing what you get, the unknown bands and surprising stuff is part of the pleasure for me. For example I found two bands I listen to regularly now on "chronix-aggression radio"... which is NOT your style of music I guess... :-)
AntwortenLöschenAnyway, I wanted to say hello. Hope everything (minus your lack of inline radio) is OK? Are you happy that "Der Klub" won the cup?