| Notice Apparently this has gotten into an index somewhere, because a lot of you are reading it and sending me emails. I am sorry to say that this article is hopelessly out of date. I wrote it when Launchcast was an independant company from Yahoo, back in the days when Silicon Valley was becoming the center of the universe and everyone thought that the venture capital would last forever. Those days are gone. Now launchcast has been ground up and has become a part of yahoo's core buisness, which is "getting you to look at ads". Blasphemy. I think that the original Launchcast company actually cared about music for the sake of itself - and sure, they wanted to make money off it, who doesn't? But Yahoo certainly sees it as a product they bought on the cheap when everyone was dying, and the only thing that they really care about is making a short term profit with it however possible - and that means pumping ads at you while hitting you with endless label-endorsed pop music. Or skip the last two paragraphs and just read this : launchcast sucks now. Once this was an article on how to maximize the enjoyment of your launchcast experience, but there's no point now, the only way to do that with launchcast now is to destroy your speakers with a sledgehammer before the sound reaches your ears. I use irate to listen to music now. It is an excellent service, and I suggest you give it a try. And now, for historical interest, the old article: Launchcast. www.launch.com A damn fine service, if I do say so myself. The laws entangling radio and media transmission would make a rubix's cube master cross his eyes. I've only seen some of these laws. All of the ones that I know of, Launchcast has managed to find a small loophole and drive a truck through it. Launchcast is your best chance of (legally) having your computer play the music you like without owning the music yourself. We'll skip the legal tapdance they've done and head directly to how to make Launchcast play the music you like. First. Do not be shy about rating music. The more ratings you have, the more rated music Launchcast can play for you. Launchcast can only play a given song so often, so rate lots of songs that you like. Launchcast will launch a literal barrage of crap when you first sign up. Grin and bear it - it gets better. Second. Set it to play mostly music you've rated. By default it's in the middle between "lots of new music" and "songs I've rated". You'll find that even under "mostly songs I've rated" it will still play lots of stuff you didn't rate. Third. Only select the genres you really like. Most music is placed in many genres, so if you select only your absolute favorite genres, you'll still get a pretty good selection. Fourth. The red x. The beloved red x. I love that little red x. Some of the reasons that Launchcast uses for playing music are absurd, such as "This song is popular on Launchcast", or "Llama herders in Texas like this song." My favorite stupid reason is, "This song is recommended for you." Come again? I wonder if copious amounts of cash determine the recommendations they give. Anyway, when bands you hate, or even just don't want to hear, come up, blow them away with the x. Make sure to kill the band instead of just the song if you don't like the band. Don't be shy. The one certainty in the Launchcast universe is that once you rate a band x, you will never hear that song/band/album again. I wish I could do this with my car radio. Fifth. Never rate a band above 80. No matter how much you like that band, never rate a band over 80. When you do, you subject yourself to the tastes of everyone else who ranks that band over 80, ala "Fans of Dave Mathews like this band". 80 will assure you some frequent plays without subjecting the tastes of others upon you. Sixth. Don't be shy about rating individual songs at 100. As far as I can tell, the only thing this does is tell Launchcast to play that song a lot, and there seem to be no detrimental side effects like under point five. Seven. A rating of 10 is weighted higher than a song that you have not rated. That's right. If you rank a song 10 out of 100, it still will play it as a prefered song, ala "you rated this song". The only effective way I've found to make a song play less is to tell Launchcast not to play it at all (see point four above). Follow the above steps and you will eventually build a Launchcast station you are happy with. It takes time, but it's worth it to get a good selection of music without paying for it, legally. And, last but not least, if you (against my advice) wish to subject yourself to my (horrible) taste in music: |