Goodtunes discussion

Since there was a thread for Pandora, I thought I'd ask these more general questions.
What do you think of personalized radio websites such as Pandora, LastFM, Jango, Slacker, Rhapsody, and Spotify?
Do you have a favorite site?
Can you share any tips or tricks for any of the specific sites that would allow for a better music experience?

I've never used these sites. How do they work?

They all work in slightly different ways, but here's the basic idea.
You visit one of the sites, and to begin, you type in the name of yur favorite artist, or your favorite song. A "radio station" is created for you, centered around that song or artist, and including similar songs and artists. If you like what you hear, you can keep listening, and/or adding more music to the station. You can usually give some kind of thumbs-up or "I like this" rating to songs you want to hear more of, and a thumbs down or "I don't like this" if there's a song you dislike. The more you listen, the more your personalized radio station will become tailored to what you like.

With a website like LastFM though, there's even more to do. You can read and learn about your favorite artists by visiting their artist page, you can join groups of like-minded music listeners (for example "classic rock" might be a group to join), you can interact with other listeners who's musical taste you appreciate by visiting their profile pages, etc.
These sites seem to open up a whole new world within the music experience.

Wow I didn't think you could do all that! Thanks for letting me know and for the easy to follow explanation :D I'll have to check it out.

I recommend Last.fm. They don't screw you into paying for subscriptions (it's free :)) and they actually pay attention to your likes and dislikes! Also there's no time limit for the month! Much better!

I agree completely; LastFM is the website I would recommend, because there's so much to do there. It is free, but even if you pay the $3 a month for the subscription service, it's well worth it. I really like how LastFM allows you to integrate all the music you play from other sources such as Itunes, Spotify, and many more, so that those likes and dislikes can be reflected in your LastFM charts.

Pandora is good. I haven't investigated LastFm too much. Sounds like LastFm is a bit more interactive than Pandora. You can rate music on Pandora and create stations based on artists or music genre.

Could you give a link to the lastfm? I once tried to go to a Harry Potter fansite and found myself on a restricted page.

who me?

I listen to Jango all the time. It's pretty damn kicking!

I am going to check out the last fm page

Leslie wrote: "Pandora is good. I haven't investigated LastFm too much. Sounds like LastFm is a bit more interactive than Pandora. You can rate music on Pandora and create stations based on artists or music ge..."

Pandora is pretty awesome, but I also enjoy using MOG. I used to use Grooveshark as well, but I don't use any more.

FYI: Last.FM uses the MOG service.