While reading “The Long Tail”, I was reminded of my experience with Pandora internet radio. I know most of you probably know what Pandora is, but just to be sure I’ll explain it briefly. Pandora is a website, and now an app on the iPhone, that allows you to pick an artist or a list of artists, and will play music by these artists and other artists that are thought of as being similar either lyrically or instrumentally. If a song comes on that you like you can approve and give it a thumbs up. If you don’t like a song, you can give it a thumbs down and Pandora will never play it for you again. Based on your input, Pandora will try to play songs that you will most likely enjoy.
I have been using Pandora a lot lately, and I started to notice all of the songs it played for me that I had never heard before. Some of these songs were early songs by bands that I listen to now, but some of the songs were by bands that I didn’t know were around. I found that I liked most of them, and have actually downloaded most of them on iTunes. This reminded me of the “misses” described in the article, and how these not so popular songs can make a huge profit when added together. Before this article I didn’t think less popular could make a seller any money, but I proved myself wrong by buying these less popular songs.