Tuesday, November 15

Internet radio

If you're like me, you haven't plunged headfirst into getting a personal media player (PMP) -- the most common type being an MP3 player. I have a small freebie that I got at a trade show that holds about thirty songs, but it hardly counts with today's standards of 5,000+ songs.

Regardless, there are a number of sites and services out there that can turn you onto some new music and more obscure bands that you may not be aware of. Many of these take the form of Internet radio. Here's a quick sample of a few I'm familiar with. You can take a look and decide which might be the best fit for you.

Last.fm:
Last.fm requires a download, can integrate with Windows Media Player, allows you to do searches on bands & artists, rate them, and create your own music stations based on your ratings and those of other users.




LAUNCHcast:
LAUNCHcast is owned by Yahoo! and integrated with Yahoo! Instant Messenger (YIM). There are certain genre-related stations you can choose from. But the cool part is that you can create your own station by rating songs, albums, and bands, and then let people on your buddy list (who also have you on theirs) see what you're listening to as well as listen to the same station as you.

Pandora:

To be honest, I'm least familiar with this one. I haven't tried it yet, but I've read good things about it. I guess it used to be a paid service, but is now FREE.
Here's a Lifehacker post about it.



Anyhow, take a look. Let me know if you know of any others (besides RealPlayer, Windows Media, iTunes, Quicktime. Yawn.). And definitely let me know if you uncover some good bands.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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