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August 02, 2007
Pacific Northwest recap... Seattle to Portland
Brief pause in Aspen, CO (blog post to follow on last night's meetup here), giving me a chance to catch up on some meetup recaps. Two weeks ago I had a fun swing up to the green lands of the Pacific Northwest with stops in Seattle and Portland. Both favorite destinations when I was in bands... great music scenes.
Tuesday was at the Seattle public library...
- an amazing modern structure right in the middle of downtown, held not surprisingly in the Microsoft auditorium. Public libraries are such terrific community ingredients. A terrific audience - lots of questions about the rates issue of course, which continues to be a theme of the town halls. Fitting given that local representative Jay Inslee is one of the lead sponsors of the Internet Radio Equality Act (he had a staffer at the town hall). Thanks again Mr. Inslee.
There was a lot of discussion about an API for developers to start building assorted guerilla products. Fortunately our CTO Tom Conrad was in attendance when the talk got technical. We'd love to enable that, but are also constrained by music licensing issues as well as the cost (hard to ensure enough advertising revenue to pay for the streams).
I also picked up a healthy number of CDs from local artists which is always nice, and received my first Twitter tutorial.
Portland was great. Blistering hot. We met in a only-in-Portland, reclaimed, all wood industrial space.. beneath a bridge. Thanks to Bryan from Disjecta for hosting our visit (and for the ride to the airport). Really felt like the perfect place for a town hall. Fortunately we had cold water for everyone.
Portland has always been a unique place for me. It's one of the most community-minded cities in the country in my opinion. I get a real sense of civic participation everytime I come through.
There was a lot of discussion about the rates of course, but also lots of advice about playlist creation - finding different ways to get started on stations like mood, genre, musical attributes, etc. (we've actually just launched some new features that start down that path).
Thanks for everyone for making this a memorable swing...
Tim (Founder)
Posted by Tim Westergren at August 2, 2007 07:46 AM
Comments
The meetup in Portland was great. Felt very Portland and very Pandora--a great mix. I thought the questions about content, especially using the attributes of the genome project themselves, was terrific. I came away hoping someday there would be a cool, retro-sort-of-gauge GUI to tool through the genome attributes themselves to dial in tunes.
Oooh, that would be incredible.
The other great hope was that classical music would make it into Pandora soon.
All-in-all great energy, great presentation and great hope.
Posted by: mike ashland at August 2, 2007 09:11 PM
Tim;
Thanks for the Portland event. It was great, and spawned some ideas that I did not anticipate.
http://eroi.blogspot.com/2007/08/pandora-shift-in-relevancy.html
Posted by: Andy at August 3, 2007 10:37 AM
and thanks for the excellent t-shirt tim. Coincidentally I'm wearing it right now as I read your email and blog. I was having breakfast at a cool little place in NE Portland this morning and the waitress noticed the shirt which led to a great discussion about how awesome pandora is...
Posted by: danwa at August 3, 2007 11:07 AM
oh,
DO come to hawaii if you can.
meet the slack key grand Master's
pahala
Kau
96777
big island
south point
black sand beach, etc.
et.al.
Posted by: griffin at August 4, 2007 12:16 PM
can you play the edited verison of the music that i pick if it can be done.
Posted by: kool-c at August 5, 2007 10:00 AM
this is hot its so easy and so good any one can navigate it the music is the best and with no comercials lets keep it going
Posted by: ken at August 5, 2007 11:15 AM
kool-c - look at this
http://blog.pandora.com/faq/#541
Posted by: pandorian at August 5, 2007 12:07 PM
Wow! What a wonderful way to use your computer and listen to your favorite music and use as background music when you are not at your computer! Your site is also excelleant and so easy to use, keep up the great quality service!
Thanks, Gaylon
Lake Forest Park, WA.
Just north os Seattle
Posted by: Gaylon at August 27, 2007 07:55 AM
I really love Pandora, I wish I could have thought of it I would be rich right about now (ha-ha).I live in Las Vegas and I got word from my best friend who lives in ATL and I love her for sending me music to my ears. I love music I don't know what my life would be without it. The only thing is I can't get Pandora on my t629 phone the is with T-Mobile could you please try to get that for me and I will be your best customer and I will past the word a long way. Love you Pandora,Your Las Vegas friend Monnie
Posted by: Monica King at September 8, 2007 05:28 PM
this is the sweetest thing ever. I live on the central Oregon coast we need this kinda thing out in the middle of wherever.made my whole month the only complaint is how am I gonna explain all the time lost? I know I'll just tell them I'm working on my semi-auto biographical novel THANKS
Posted by: chavez at September 24, 2007 06:07 PM
I'm pretty sure I've told all the other music junkies I know about Pandora. I love it here!
Thank You ( 35 min. north of seattle)
Posted by: Sara at October 9, 2007 09:55 AM
Hi - a friend introduced me to your station & I really love it. You NEED to come to Bellingham! We've got LOTS of great musicians here - one notably being Lydia McCauley - check her out.
Posted by: Tina Thomsen-Park at December 20, 2007 01:54 PM
Pandora is great, the only improvement I can see is the ability to choose a song & hear it full length.
Posted by: Rich at August 5, 2008 04:36 AM
What an amazing idea, thanks sooooooo much for providing this service. I listen to it when I have my computer on and even though it's for background music, i can't help noticing the music. Aside from the occasional rogue song, it's music I would play. I hope to catch you guys the next time you're in Seattle.
Posted by: Shanna at August 5, 2008 04:27 PM
