So some of you will remember that awhile back (3 or 4 years ago) Windows Media Player offered a free radio, but now that WMP 10 is out, you have to subscribe to what they call URGE. URGE is just their internet radio. If you don’t know by now, I HATE paying for things that should be free. I don’t pay to listen to radio in my car, therefore I should not have to pay for internet radio either. Some of you may also say, but iTunes has a free radio. This is true. But I HATE iTunes too. It is a necessary vice for those of us who have an iPod. (True, there are alternatives, but none as good as iTunes [yet].)

Anyways, I wanted to let you know about Pandora.com, which is a (mostly) free internet radio provider. What’s different between this and all the other internet radio software out there is that you can punch in your own artists or songs that you enjoy, and it creates a radio station of your own based upon artist style, musical composition (beat, sound, feeling, etc..). As you go along, if you dont like a particular song you can rate it with a thumbs down. If you like what you hear, give it a thumbs up. The more you rate songs, the more specific the music you hear becomes. So if you love techno, but don’t like “The Lords of Acid” but do enjoy “Scooter” or “Basshunter” then Pandora will use the “Music Genome Project” to customize your music experience.

Anyways, it’s free to use most features. The only time you will want to pay for more is if you try to ’skip’ a song more than 5 times per hour, you’ll have to pay for that privilege. But in my opinion, I don’t try to skip songs on the radio in my car, so I don’t see the need for me to do that online. I hope you enjoy the radio!

Popularity: 97% [?]

1. Kveld-vulf Says:
   May 13th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

   Glad to see you found Pandora! Another option if you don’t like a song, is simply change channels. I have channels for everything from Beethoven to Blue Man Group to Temposhark to suit my mood of the moment.