Scratching Your Itch: Custom Online Radio

I’m going to start posting some of the favorite places I visit on the web – most on a daily basis. I figure there are those of you out there who aren’t quite as crazy as I am scouring the web for new things, so I’ll just fill you in on what I find.

If you have any requests for anything you’d like to know about on the web – if it exists, etc, just let me know in the comments.

Anyhoo, one of the biggest advantages of the Internet and high-speed access (for music lovers) is the new genre of online “radio stations” that have popped up.

The first is Pandora. (www.pandora.com)

Pandora allows you to create your own stations based on only the artists and songs you enter. It then uses your chosen artists and songs to find other songs and/or artists that you might like. You have the option of “thumbing” up or down songs that you like – or don’t – to further help your station play exactly the type of music you want.

The sound quality is excellent for streaming radio – granted, it’s no CD quality, but it’s the best that I’ve found in streaming radio.

If you haven’t tried it out yet, you should. I listen to my stations on this site every single day.

The second “station” is Musicovery. (http://www.musicovery.com)

I really haven’t had too much experience with Musicovery (primarily because I can’t pull away from Pandora), but the concept is an excellent one. Musicovery is different in that you choose your music based on your mood. You tell it what mood you are in – energetic, dark, calm, etc – then select the genres of music you prefer and it does the rest in selecting music based on your selections.

You then are presented with a map, of sorts, with different songs. The great thing is that if you don’t like the direction the map is headed, you can click on another song and it will branch out a different map based on your selection – all on the fly.

The sound quality is less than Pandora, but is still pretty good – closer to what you’d expect from a streaming music source, however.

If you want to try something different, you should try it out. I’m currently listening to it now.

My current mood? Slightly Dark and Calm.

As you can see, there are some great sites out there for those of you who are stuck behind a computer screen all day – or want to pump some music into your daily routine.

If you try out any of these, let me know in the comments what you thought – and/or if you have any recommendations of your own!

Popularity: 12% [?]