I've been living in the digital music world for over a decade. I still recall the days of '99 when the whole concept of WinAmp and "skins" first came onto the scene. My music was all ripped, and it could go wherever my laptop went. And then, of course, the whole iPod craze and the iTunes store was incredible.
But nothing has changed my music listening life as much as Squeezebox (originally the SlimP3 player) and their SlimServer. Despite my love of my PCs (I have 9 of them scattered through my homes and offices), nothing is like music playing through real stereo speakers (not to mention a real stereo). And this is what a Squeezebox does -- it accesses your music files on any of your PCs or Macs and connects via RCA or optical plugs to your regular amp. Glorious, wonderful sound without the need to select a CD on your jukebox or whatever. Control it with a remote, or from any PC on the network. Tres cool.
But the magic moment in 2006 was when Squeezebox integrated Pandora into the system. You don't need a Squeezebox to see the magic of Pandora, but that's when it really shines. Pandora is based on the music genome project, which essentially tags over 10k songs with over 200 attributes. And you build up to 100 of your own "radio stations" by saying what kind of music you like. Much, much better than collaborative/social ranking/AI stuff that Yahoo Music Engine and others have tried. And you get to tune and improve it over time. Try it out at www.pandora.com (and see my stations at http://www.pandora.com/people/john.funk)
The cool thing about Squeezebox + Pandora is that with one box I get all the music I already know I love, and for like $36 a year I get to listen to (and discover) all sorts of new music that I never would have heard any other way but have a high probability of liking since it's the "type" of music I already know I like...
You can google both of these services to your heart's content and buy them (or not). My goal in this blog is to make you aware of great things; not to dissect, diagram, review, or compare.
My next wish is to be able to "archive" a bunch of my Pandora stations on a USB stick (or whatever simple flash medium is appropriate) and just plug it into my car stereo... I know I can hack it, but it would be neat to just push a button and make it so...
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