Pandora’s Box
Just lately I’ve been reading about Web 2.0 and how I might be able to develop some simple applications for use with the Methodist Church and the brass band community. As a result I’m always looking into what other people have done. Two examples I came across this week are Meebo and Pandora.
Meebo is a universal IM client that is browser based and implemented for Web 2.0. It is a great example of what’s possible, being able to drag the sub windows around is awesome. However, I struggle to see the benefit. It’s reason for being is that it “lets you get all of your IMing done in one place”, which is just what Trillian and others do, but not in a browser window. Personally I’d prefer to leave my IM as a separate window from my browsing window (tabs or no tabs) as they are completely different interactions. With IM you can be dipping into often if you’re holding a conversation with someone and having this in the browser will mean frequent interruptions to your browsing, switching tabs or windows. I suppose the benefit may be that it’s one less application to install and keep updated as you just need the browser, but will the web service be able to handle video and file exchanging?
On the other hand Pandora is great. This is part of the Music Genome project and it lets you create your own “radio station” based on either an artist or song that you like. It will then generate a dynamic playlist that can be adapted as you go along by rating the tracks you hear. From what I’ve listened to so far it seems pretty good at matching up styles and is letting me hear bands I would never have heard of. I suppose the same argument may go for Pandora as it does for Meebo if the likes of Apple add similar functionality to their media players. Check it out, the first 10 hours are free, but then there’s a subscription after that.