Music recommendation service Pandora Radio has expanded its library with an all-new genre: comedy.
As with Pandora's music offerings, users can search for preferred comedians and sub-genres to create personalized streaming channels that algorithmically recommend new sketches based on the user's preferences.
Pandora's so-called Comedy Genome Project contains 10,000 clips. Sketches span 12 genres, including Today's Comedy, Comedy Icons, Political Comedy and Raw Comedy from over 700 comedians. Featured artists include Mitch Hedberg, Daniel Tosh, Chris Rock, Joan Rivers, Richard Prior, George Carlin, David Cross and more.
Why would a music service suddenly offer comedy clips? The answer is simple, founder and CEO Tim Westergren explained in a post on the Pandora Blog: It's what the users wanted.
"Adding comedians to the mix has been one of the top requests from our listeners," wrote Westergren. "It's been a very fun experience, taking what we've learned in music and applying it to a whole new category. Now, instead of talking about 'minor keys,' 'falsetto,' and 'extensive vamping,' our comedy-analysts capture 'odd juxtaposition' (A horse walks into a bar...), 'misdirection' and 'spoonerisms' (a well-boiled icicle, instead of a well-oiled bicycle)."
Visit Pandora's Comedy Genre Stations to see what the service has cooked up.
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