As a Mac person I try out the iTunes first. Obviously it is useless – iTunes radio is the only tool for some passive discovery programming where I would learn new things and refine my taste based on what I hear. No feedback channel. Once people will have built their libraries iTunes will have to grow up to the next stage or they are in trouble.
Moving on to Rhapsody. $12.99 or $14.99 for a monthly subscription and I am equipped with a fairly accurate discovery tool that will allow me to do a lot of research, create playlist and also buy and download what I want. But it costs money and I am stuck with a monthly subscription before I truly know whether it is a tool I want to have as a part of my lifestyle.
Let’s move into the free models. Open up Wikipedia, read the entry for salsa, know it all in ten minutes, ready for deeper level research tomorrow evening. Now, let’s take the iPhone and open up the Pandora app. Create channels for the essential artists from Wikipedia, refine those channels by voting when I hear something really good, skip when the engine suggests something a bit off. This is it – the music industry is saved. But where is the ‘buy’ button? Are these guys deliberately trying to avoid making money?
When I first discovered Pandora it was the very early days of the iPhone app store. It was probably one of the first apps I downloaded and I liked it. Shortly thereafter there were rumors that Pandora will run out of money and needs to shut down. I had this funny feeling it was not going to happen. How wrong can the industry be when they cannot smell the roses right under their nose?
Now the only remaining thing is to remove regional license restrictions from Pandora so I can use it everywhere in the world…
In 1995 the Internet was called the ‘accidental information superhighway’. Is Pandora now the accidental music industry savior?
