Back from the desert…
Had a great gathering with Arizonians last Sunday at the Rialto Theatre in downtown Tucson.
As always, the get togethers in smaller towns have a certain special character. About 150 braved driving rain and howling wind to make it out. Tons of tons of questions – it seemed we could have gone on into the night, but I didn’t want to make people miss the Oscars !
Lots of talk about the playlist methodology – especially about variety/repetition, an issue we’re really focused on. It’s clear that some stations on Pandora have become too narrow, and we need to figure that out.
A number of folks also asked about the prospect for an open API, to allow individual developers to start building on the platform. We’re not there yet, but it’s certainly food for thought.
It was also great to meet a handful of folks from the local radio station – clearly looking to find ways to help evolve broadcast radio onto the web. One Dj in attendance asked about access to local ‘thumb’ information so he could use it to help build relevant playlists for his audience. Interesting.
Met a couple grad students working on some interesting pattern matching stuff too.
Thanks again to everyone for coming out. It was a pleasure meeting all of you…
Next up is Seattle on Wednesday this week. 7pm at the Public Library. Should be fun – St. Patrick’s Day!
Tim (Founder)