Pandora or Last.fm?

[evilpenguin]

I'm not much of an internet radio guy myself, Last.fm's classic rocks station seems to get the job done just fine for me, but recently someone told me I was very wrong and Pandora was much better. I'm curious what the general consensus is.

[darcilicious]

I like last.fm primarily for its scrobbling feature and secondarily for its recommendation engine / radio.

But when it comes to just plain internet radio, I prefer SomaFM and DI (Digitally Imported).

I have never used Pandora, not even once.

(Along these lines, am I the only one that missed simplify media? sigh...)

[Brent]

I've used and loved Pandora for a long time. Still consider it the best between those two options although I'm learning Last.FM now since it (along with Pandora and others) is an included service with Sonos

[Peter_h]

I prefer slacker over pandora.

[Ericft]

don't forget slacker radio...another great option with customizable playlists for deeper cuts, more recent music and other options...i always felt that pandora played the same music over again too quickly as compared to slacker..

[Ericft]

peter_h....i guess we posted about slacker at the same time!!!!

[wrems]

Never used last.fm... but I love Pandora!

[stanger89]

I just stream my own collection via J River Media Center. No commercials, no fees

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I just stream my own collection via J River Media Center. No commercials, no fees

Honestly, the 'fees' with pandora are definitely worth it. $36/year gets you no commericals, higher quality, and unlimited listening (and is certainly cheaper than the cost to build a large enough collection). I pretty sure I'd hear a lot more 'repeats' using my own collection than i do from Pandora... the only stuff that gets repeated (especially after you've tweaked your stations by adding variety, thumbs up/down, etc) are the ones I really like. There's also a 'I'm tired of this Song' feature that will remove it from circulation for a few weeks, without the permanent removal that the thumbs down does.

I think the best thing Pandora has, though, is that I get the same stations no matter how I'm listening to it. My phone, my car, home, computer, etc.

[Zippster]

Pandora, even though its gone a little whacky for me lately with the new commercials and having some songs just end mid way through and then a new song start....

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Honestly, the 'fees' with pandora are definitely worth it. $36/year gets you no commericals, higher quality, and unlimited listening (and is certainly cheaper than the cost to build a large enough collection). I pretty sure I'd hear a lot more 'repeats' using my own collection than i do from Pandora... the only stuff that gets repeated (especially after you've tweaked your stations by adding variety, thumbs up/down, etc) are the ones I really like. There's also a 'I'm tired of this Song' feature that will remove it from circulation for a few weeks, without the permanent removal that the thumbs down does.

Problem I have, and this is sort of in general with "digital"/download music sources is a lot of what I like just isn't available. I always joke with my friends that the probability of me liking something is inversely proportional to the frequency it's played on the radio

Though playing pandora again (forgot I'd setup a free account already), I might need to look again.

I think the best thing Pandora has, though, is that I get the same stations no matter how I'm listening to it. My phone, my car, home, computer, etc.

Out of curiosity, how do you do Pandora in your car? I like the "theory" of Pandora, I actually have something "similar" setup with JRMC, I have dynamic playlists "Smartlists" setup for different things like genre and rating. I've not got a really large collection but it's big enough that part of my smartlist definition is that it hasn't been played in a while.

I'm really curious about the car thing, I don't care to have it on a phone, the places I listen, I have access to my personal collection, except the car, I have not found an acceptable way to get a JRMC-like experience in the car....

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by stanger89

...

Out of curiosity, how do you do Pandora in your car?

....

How I do it is... I have a bluetooth car stereo and a data plan on my bluetooth phone.

S

[stanger89]

That was my guess

[xxLJLxx]

I really like Pandora and Last.fm both. I voted for Last.fm because of the selection of music they have. I like to listen and get a very wide variety of music even if it's unknown underground type of stuff. I listen to quite a bit of heavy metal and hardcore music and Pandora just can't get a broad enough range of what I like and look forward to hearing.

Either way, I enjoy and listen to both of them.

[Fuzzy]

In my truck, I simply choose the native Pandora plugin on my CarPC running OpenMobile... in my wife's car, she plugs her droid into the Aux-in on her factory stereo.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I'm not much of an internet radio guy myself, Last.fm's classic rocks station seems to get the job done just fine for me, but recently someone told me I was very wrong and Pandora was much better. I'm curious what the general consensus is.

My vote is for Slacker!

[zoundz]

I'm liking Pandora, in particular with a standalone Livio internet radio, but no one has mentioned radioio http://www.radioio.com/, which has terrific sound quality and only a few commercials.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

... in my wife's car, she plugs her droid into the Aux-in on her factory stereo.

That's how we do it in our cars..... iPod connectivity for backup for when we hit the boonies with limited cell coverage!

[ThePaladinTech]

My vote would be for Last.FM - Both Last.FM and Pandora are way cool but there is a fundamental difference between the two.

Pandora takes the music you like, and based on qualities of that music selects other music it thinks you would like. Pandora has allowed me to discover stuff I like.

Last.FM takes the music you like, and based on other PEOPLE that like that music, selects other music it thinks you would like.

A place this was critical was at my church... I tried Pandora and some of the music it selected was definitely not Christian Music... The music was similar in it *sound* however. Last.FM we never had issues with, you tell it a bunch of Christian Artist and you get a bunch more Christian Artists. And I've seen this in other areas as well Last.FM seems to stay within the Genre better.

Pandora has no concept of genre, user connections or ratings. It doesn't care what other people who like Gomez also like. When you create a radio station on Pandora, it uses a pretty radical approach to delivering your personalized selections: Having analyzed the musical structures present in the songs you like, it plays other songs that possess similar musical traits.

*Pandora relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributes covering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics. It's a project that began in January 2000 and took 30 experts in music theory five years to complete. The Genome is based on an intricate analysis by actual humans (about 20 to 30 minutes per four-minute song) of the music of 10,000 artists from the past 100 years. The analysis of new music continues every day since Pandora's online launch in August 2005. As of May 2006, the Genome's music library contains 400,000 analyzed songs from 20,000 contemporary artists. You won't find Latin or classical yet: Pandora is in the process of developing a specialized Latin music Genome and is still deep in thought about how to approach the world of classical composition.

- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/in....htm/printable

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I just stream my own collection via J River Media Center. No commercials, no fees

I listen to Pandora through my Squeezebox Classic. I haven't paid any fees and I don't get any commercials. I'm not sure how or why this is happening. I'll just play dumb and keep listening.