Poll: Music to Work By – Last.fm vs. Pandora

Anne Zelenka — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:00:18 +0000

I was checking out personalization service matchmine today and it made me think of Last.fm vs. Pandora for finding music to listen to while I work. Last.fm uses collaborative filtering — recommending music based on what people with similar taste in music like — while Pandora characterizes music on a number of attributes and then suggests music similar to songs and artists you say you like.

I prefer Pandora, because it consistently provides music that I enjoy. Last.fm never seemed to get my taste quite right. But many of my friends prefer Last.fm.

matchmine seems closer to Pandora in its approach, matching content such as music, movies, video, and blogs to people based on its inherent qualities rather than based on who liked it. matchmine’s service is only available in beta right now, but they’ll be rolling out integration with online services in the new year. You can read more about matchmine at GigaOM.

Where do you prefer to get your music recommendations? Collaboratively filtered (Last.fm), matched by musical DNA (Pandora), or some other way?

Take the poll, then tell us in the comments what kind of music you like to listen to while you work.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

GigaOM » Collaboration

Poll: Music to Work By – Last.fm vs. Pandora