You Are In Control

Today’s theme - You Are In Control. You choose when you want to listen to music or watch a movie or TV show, and you choose the content. The old model that I grew up with was that the radio station or TV channel set the schedule and your choices were “take it or leave it”. In the 80s, the Walkman and the VCR began to change that. Now we’re moving toward total choice, on demand programming where you and I make the choices. Several church members recently told me that they’re watching “Lost” a season behind the network schedule, renting or buying the DVDs (no commercials this way!). Practically every show with any audience at all is becoming available this way. For those with a video Ipod, you can now buy many shows the day after they air and watch them as you wait in the doctor’s office (on a three-inch screen, but still).

RE: Music - I’m really impressed with a music concept called Pandora. It’s an internet radio station but one that goes way beyond the normal way of doing things. You start by entering a favorite song or artist. Then Pandora creates a radio station for you that plays songs that are musically similar to the music you named. “Musically similar” is no accident either because Pandora employs dozens of professional musicians to analyze songs according to many criteria. In fact, they call this analysis the Music Genome Project. It works pretty well. I’ve got three stations set up so far. With a free (and totally legal) account you can have up to 100 stations for your ever-changing moods, and you can refine them as they play by adding new criteria to guide Pandora. There is also some weight given to lyrics. Example: I kicked off my currently-playing station by typing in “Audio Adrenaline” and the first six songs were by Christian artists (Audio A twice, Reuben Morgan, a cut from a Promise Keepers CD, Bleach and Switchfoot). I then refined the station by telling it to play songs like “Meant to Live” by Switchfoot, and now the seventh song playing is by Third Eye Blind, non-Christian but musically similar. Pandora pays no attention to the popularity of artists or songs which means it is likely to introduce you to new music rather than play only what’s “hot”. Pandora increases your content control but obviously limits your choice of where you can listen.

More on this subject later…

January 16, 2006 · Filed Under Movies, Music, Web

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