The Medium is the Message

This blog post is for the lecture on November 19^th, 2018.

For this class we had to of come to class having read a few articles on how Pandora ranks its music. As a personal consumer of Pandora Premium, I feel like I have a good standing to argue here. I am personally a huge fan of how Pandora sorts and shows listeners it’s music. One of my favorite things about it is the point that Mandl hated most: The music that is being shown to you is exactly like the music you are listening to. Now the argument that Mandl makes is that people’s preferences are not limited to the exact same bpm or type of song and therefore should not be limited to such. However, this distinction relies on the consumers habits as well. I say this because if I am listening to a slow, sad, song and the next song is some kind of Justin Timberlake auditorily jumping off the walls, I am NOT going to be happy. So, the way that Pandora separates its music is so that it can play songs similar to the one I am listening to, and I have found plenty of favorite new bands this way. This algorithm accounts for the problem that Mandl mentioned by saying “Oh, the consumer changed stations to the ears version of ten cups of coffee. Therefore, I will now begin playing such music instead of the fetal-position music.” This change is accounted for in the algorithm and it depends on the consumer saying “My tastes have changed for today, and therefore I am going to change the initial song or station I pick in order to not listen to the same thing.”

Now to be devil’s advocate, I can see a single issue that Mandl was trying to hit on in Pegoraro’s article. Music is not, and never will be, a science. Therefore, trying to confine it as such is a huge disservice to music. I would agree if the way humans consume products was also not a science. However, it is recorded in history that humans consume products in a way that can be scientifically measured and then utilized for the betterment of the community. Take, for example, the Coke-a-Cola recipe that came out many many years ago. If you don’t remember it, it’s because everyone hated it so vehemently that it was removed from the shelves within a year and the old recipe was put back into place. Fun fact though, the old recipe is still currently used in Britain because they were the only ones that actually liked it better. Anyway, this was a scientific drop in the use of Coke due to people not liking it. So, if Pandora is able to say that people who like music category A tend to skip music category B WHILE CONSUMING music category A, then they should be able to play less of B in order to supply A. This is due to the same “ten coffee cups” reason mentioned above. As a personal consumer of Pandora Premium, I say whatever method they’re using, never stop.

Here’s a picture of the British Coke series. We already know they’re weird for liking the new recipe, but to further reiterate that check out the Coke Zero Zero.