Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock

If cell phones have internet access, and internet radio has moved to the portable space (e.g. Pandora on iPhones, and the recent announcement of Slacker.com and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion [RIM] teaming up), how long before internet radio is just radio—radio like it should be—songs you want without a DJ ‘personality’ interrupting the vibe? It’s not like Clear Channel stations are live, so what’s the difference? Buffer times? I can live with that. Hey, isn’t this what satellite was supposed to deliver?   

As I’ve stated before, I like Pandora, though have found it difficult to stay on any one internet station for very long. And I’ve always felt Pandora’s UI was clunky. I do, however, give them credit for some great content on their site in the way of videos about how music is played, produced, and categorized.

More and more I find myself being a late adopter—somewhere in the second wave, giving tribute to the first wave who’ve been sacrificed on the ‘too quick to market’ capitalist altar. The first wave plays a role in helping shape a product or technology’s trajectory, usually at the expense of frustration and high prices. The second wave misses out on influence, but we don’t mind—if we did we’d be in the first wave.

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