Having It Your Way with Online Radio
I’m a huge fan of listening to what I want, when I want. However, I like surprises and love listening to a steady stream of songs that maybe I wouldn’t have thought to queue on my iPod. With that being said, I’ve tried just about everything when it comes to customizable internet radio.
As I’ve mentioned before, I try to stay in tune to new Web 2.0 and social media sites. If there is a good buzz about it on Mashable or KillerStartups.com, I’ll probably check it out.
So internet radio seems to be a fairly competitive space. I first tried out Pandora, which by the way has gone through so many changes in the past few months (def. more social media friendly now). Loved it because it was very plug and play–just type in your favorite artist and GO. But, as I starting to listen every day, the same songs kept coming up and up again. Repetition to a point where I didn’t want to listen to the same three Tori Amos songs every day.
I then came across Jango - “Social Internet Radio.” Jango lured me in immediately with the first couple hours of music I listened to - it was so right on with my tastes, I was floored. Yet, after a while, all of these random small-time artists I’ve never heard of started to infiltrate my listening stream. It quickly got old to click on the “Never Play Again” button over and over again (not to mention all the random friend invites and “I like your style” messages).
I figured that I’d never really find a site that could match my musical tastes while not trying to peddle some obscure artists into the mix. The funniest thing to me is that the internet radio site I first dabbled with in college (before Facebook, MySpace and during the boom of Napster) is the one I’ve returned to today. Gotta tip my hat off to Yahoo! Launchcast. This site constantly surprises me (how did it know I secretly like some ’90s Michael Bolton??) - and really reminds me why I adore music so much. The big drawback of course is the commercial interruptions (if I hear one for Speed Racer one more time…). You can choose to pay to avoid these, but I’m sorry - I love free and I can deal.
Nothing is perfect, but this one comes closest for me. Just wanted to share it simply for the fact it took me quite some time to find what was already there.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment