Internet Radio station, Yahoo! Options

[camsmith]

I've only jsut found out about http://music.yahoo.co.uk, an internet radio station where you can rate teh songs/artists/albums as you listen to them, which customises the music it feeds you.

A really cool idea, and seems to work for me.

In my opinion, better than itunes, as you don't need to own the music to listen to it (although you can't specify which song to listen to next).

[james]

better than itunes, as you don't need to own the music to listen to it

- what, like a radio? What you chattin bout foo?

[camsmith]

Oh I see... you can customise a radio station?!?! Sorry, I thought you were in graphic design.

<mutter>numpty</mutter>

[james]

Indeed you can't - but as you so rightly say you also can't chose what to hear next - does that make iTunes (or any other media player for that matter) 'better' than Yahoo! Music?

Mental note - type slowly for the colonials...

[Matt]

....but surely what Cam is getting at is that you don't NEED to choose what to hear next, it will choose what to play next, based on the things you like, thus making it better than a "generic media player", on which you would have to own all the music that you could listen to.

except it's yahoo..... which makes it worse again.

[james]

Hell yeah - I'm only joshing with the big fella. I do appreciate that under certain criteria it offers something new and differant (but I still disagree with the 'better' tag).

Other things to consider; in the long term how the licensing/payment scheme wil pan out (if there are no 'sales' there needs to be either subscription fees or advertising to pay for the music), it only works if you have a connection (shit all use for listening while travelling ATM) and as Matt intimated Yahoo have a somewhat checkered history with locked-in technologies, but it will be intersting to see if it works as an idea.

[camsmith]

The reason I say 'better' is that it suits my preference. I'm always up to hear different music from artists I may not have heard of before. If I don't like it, I can press the "next" button to bring up another tune. As I rate more music and artists, it is more likely to serve up something I like.

The main reason for this is that the main time I listen to music is at work, on my laptop. I have a fairly modest music collection, so after not too long, I have heard it all. Yes, a "generic media player" is portable, but I have a walkman, discman and MP3 player all gathering dust, as when I go out, I tend to be with other people.

Therefore, it's better for me. I haven't seen anything else like it (i.e. without the talking on radio). So far, the ads have been limited to finding out more about the song/artist/album so you can buy it through Yahoo shopping. Entirely relevant and I'm happy to put up with that for a "free" product.

[james]

It certainly sounds like a good idea - let's hope they can keep it 'free' and the ads relatively non-invasive.

[Aly]

I've not had a look at the Yahoo thing yet but it sounds similar to Last.FM which I have been using recently. Due to the fact that I have developed an incredibly lazy attitude when it come to reading text longer than a few sentences on web pages, i'm probably not using it to its full potential but its still pretty good.

Once you have downloaded the media player thingy, you just type the name of a band/artist you like and it will choose a random playlist featuring similar sounding artists. This can be a bit hit and miss and is better for definite genres like electronica, soul, hip hop etc. Put in the Beatles and you get a totally random selection because most contemporary artists sound like/have been influenced by the Beatles in one way or another!

Its a bit poo in that you can't pause the tracks, just skip to the next one. You can flag the tracks you like though and then go to the website to find more info/tracks by the same artist.

Oh yeah and there are no adverts.

http://www.last.fm/

[camsmith]

I've just noticed a down sideto this. Although the player is based inside you web browser of choice, it tends to eat any spare CPU that you have. On a laptop (which is what I'm using at work), this can lead to heat problems when it's on for a whole day.

This leads to the CPU throttling (slowing itself down) to keep cool, as there is no room for something like the Zalman heatsink in my home PC. If you're trying to do work on the laptop at the same time, this can be frustrating (assuming you have tight deadlines), as it takes some time to cool back down and get back on with work at full speed.

[Inspector Weasel]

OH αγαπητό, όλη αυτά η παράξενη συζήτηση υπολογιστών. Είναι όλα τα ελληνικά σε με.

[camsmith]

Τα ελληνικά σας είναι καλύτερα από το ορυχείο!

[paul]

I knew all this immigration would cause a problem but I didn't think it would lead to writing in Arabic

[camsmith]

너는 한국어를 좋아하는가텐데?