listening to the cloud, cloud computing part 1

Earlier today I mentioned that I'm in Nashville this week with Lauren at her project site. My earlier post today refered to my 'idea/dream' mobile office. I mentioned that today's cloud reduces the overall requirements on a notebook/laptop/netbook. So with that I start my first post thinking about actually surviving on a cloud. For my first item, I'll start with multimedia.... well music. I could include video, but I there is not enough screen real estate to watch a movie/tv show while working on a laptop.

Traditionally the first thought when it comes to bringing music with you on the go would have to be an iPod/mp3 player.... and yes I have one (my brother gave me a Zen for my birthday last March, and it kicks ass, I never did write that post about connecting my Zen to my linux box... one day I do that), but mp3 players limit you to what you can listen to. Until they come out with an Infinte sized iPod, we will always be limited. So what is the answer... streaming music.

Streaming music is not a new idea or concept, it has been around for a long time. Almost every mp3 software package can play streaming music from sources like Shoutcast, I recommend Sky.fm, DI.fm and SomaFM.com. But while using a software player to listen to streaming music solves the limited storage problem, it is not necessarily considered part of the cloud. Cloud computing does several things, one big item in my mind is reduce the diskspace footprint required by software. So ideally a cloud solution should be software light or in other words in a browser.

For that I'm sure there are several other options but the too I've been very happy with are Pandora.com and Last.fm. Last.fm is a social network for music, you can listen to music playlist of friends or recommendations based on songs you've scrobbled. That said you need to first submit music you've listened to, to Last.fm.  So, in comes Pandora... Pandora is a great music solution. You can again listen to 'stations' 'friends' put together, or you can create your own 'stations'.

So my solution for listening to music on the cloud: Pandora. (click here for my shared stations)

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Also using a plugin/add-on from http://code.yerblog.com/lastfm/ you can scrobble your Pandora songs straight to Last.FM.