Pandora is a music exploration software. I also think it is a brilliant idea. And though my friends tell me it isn't the first, I was completely blown away by it! However, I felt like most things it could be improved. (Remember, now inspired by TED, I am now dreaming!!) So I sent them a mail. Feedback? Here it is :
Hi
I just came to know about Pandora in the past few weeks, and I think this is a great product! I have discovered more songs I liked in the last few weeks that I did in a couple of months before using Pandora.
However, I had a suggestion, though it could prove to be hard to implement. Rather than just make a selection based on a song, why not make the selection based on a part of the song? The algorithm seems to focus on attributes of the song like male vocal voice and electric guitar, so you may have a lot of the information needed to implement this.
Take for example, Metallica : Master of Puppets. Maybe the listener does not like the whole song, but he/she "really" likes the electric guitar solo piece. He/she should be able to modify the search algorithm to include only the information about the electric guitar and not the vocals. Then, say it would make more sense to play Ecstasy of Gold rather than November Rain. They would give very different search results and the latter would be a more effective search.
Another thing that could be done is to give the user an option (turned off be default except for the first time he registers) to choose which of the options he liked in the song. For example, if we had the vocals and the guitar at the same time, he/she may choose only one of them, whichever one he likes, or both. There could be an option in the menu which enables him to choose whichever component of whichever part he likes.
I believe both of these features will enable a better search. What we have right now is not the DNA, but the whole cauldron of DNA. Making the search even better would really let us choose the DNA we like without getting a baggage every time we choose to like something.
As I said earlier, you guys are doing a great job!! Please do let me know what you think of these ideas.
Also, is there any reason we can only say whether we like the song or not but not rate how much we like the song? Is that related to copyright? Would such a rating not make the search many times better? And you must already have all the information related to this. Just that you would have to input the ratings as weights and implement these in the search algorithms as weights. Of course I could be wrong, but this should not be terribly difficult, should it?
Thank you for taking the patience to read the email.
Hi
I just came to know about Pandora in the past few weeks, and I think this is a great product! I have discovered more songs I liked in the last few weeks that I did in a couple of months before using Pandora.
However, I had a suggestion, though it could prove to be hard to implement. Rather than just make a selection based on a song, why not make the selection based on a part of the song? The algorithm seems to focus on attributes of the song like male vocal voice and electric guitar, so you may have a lot of the information needed to implement this.
Take for example, Metallica : Master of Puppets. Maybe the listener does not like the whole song, but he/she "really" likes the electric guitar solo piece. He/she should be able to modify the search algorithm to include only the information about the electric guitar and not the vocals. Then, say it would make more sense to play Ecstasy of Gold rather than November Rain. They would give very different search results and the latter would be a more effective search.
Another thing that could be done is to give the user an option (turned off be default except for the first time he registers) to choose which of the options he liked in the song. For example, if we had the vocals and the guitar at the same time, he/she may choose only one of them, whichever one he likes, or both. There could be an option in the menu which enables him to choose whichever component of whichever part he likes.
I believe both of these features will enable a better search. What we have right now is not the DNA, but the whole cauldron of DNA. Making the search even better would really let us choose the DNA we like without getting a baggage every time we choose to like something.
As I said earlier, you guys are doing a great job!! Please do let me know what you think of these ideas.
Also, is there any reason we can only say whether we like the song or not but not rate how much we like the song? Is that related to copyright? Would such a rating not make the search many times better? And you must already have all the information related to this. Just that you would have to input the ratings as weights and implement these in the search algorithms as weights. Of course I could be wrong, but this should not be terribly difficult, should it?
Thank you for taking the patience to read the email.
1 comment:
Debnath-saab,
I must say that i strongly disagree with you. Music, like all art, is more than a sum of the parts. By suggesting we chop it up and pick what we like, I think, is silly. Almost like saying" I like Picasso's right angles. Who else did angles like those".
I must also say if you had picked a lesser song than MoP (and that's not difficult), I would not have such an issue with it!
Cheers!
Dyan
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