Many of you who read yesterday’s posting about Pandora, the new Web-based streaming-audio “music discovery service,” have already written to tell me that you tried it and liked it, for which much thanks.
One well-informed reader, however, told me quite a bit more:
i just figured out how pandora got itunes and amazon to let them run wild. it’s genius really and i’ve used the same strategy in marketing projects for corporations.
pandora gets to use whatever it wants (within limits, of course) and in exchange, they are feeding demographic data to itunes and amazon. if you don’t sign up, the demo data is raw. in other words, itunes learns what types of music is favored with other types as well as mismatches. this helps them market to those who download.
so, for example, if you download prez, you may be interested to learn that a stan getz disc was also favored by most people who dug prez. it gets better. those who do sign up is where the real action is. when you log in and indicate what you like and dislike. in short, you are telling itunes and amazon exactly what terry teachout likes.
so, when you log in at itunes or amazon, cookies read it’s you and itunes and amazon tempt you with stuff you may have listened to and liked or similar stuff that the data says you should like. it’s brilliant. the end user gets free music, pandora gets ad revenue and a percentage of each vote from itunes/amazon and itunes/amazon get database gold.
not bad eh?
Not bad at all–though I’m sure that certain readers will bristle at the thought of such data being mined without their explicit permission, even if the process does lead to their musical horizons being expanded for free.
To these people I say, Better disable your cookies and hide in the root cellar! That’s the future of marketing, cultural and otherwise, and unless you go off the new-media grid altogether, you can’t escape it. For better and worse–in proportions that have yet to be made fully manifest–it’s already here.
UPDATE: Another reader writes:
I tried it. I wasn’t happy. Not because of the choices, but because
they didn’t know even one of the people/groups I was suggesting to
give me any choices. Granted, these were not your usual American
bland artists, they were Belgian, French, Quebecois, Algerian and
Lebanese. And not one of the 15 made it into their list.
Still, it seems to me that if you’re even slightly adventurous, you
might not do so well with this service because it won’t give me (for
example) someone like Liane Foly or Rachid Taha that I might enjoy.
Given the diversity of musical tastes and cultures here, I’m surprised
that they’re not broader in selection.
Er, well…yikes!