Streaming Radio/Music Service

STREAMING RADIO/MUSIC SERVICE

I am off to Boston to celebrate my mother's 75th birthday so you won't hear from me again until next week.
I'm going to visit family and hopefully make it into the North End to Mike's Pastry ... one of the best pastry shops around.

I ended last week talking about Outlook and Google calendars and synchronization. I thought I would chat today about Pandora. Hopefully, everyone reading this has heard of Pandora. If you haven't and you enjoy music then this blog entry is for you. My husband had never heard of it until I mentioned it and now he is enthralled. ... well that may be too strong a word.
If you have kids, check it out and then show off your knowledge and see if they know about it. ( They probably do.)

Pandora is a streaming Internet based music/radio service. It has 2 levels of subscription :  Basic service, which is free and then it has a Premium subscription that allows you to avoid ads.
Basically, what Pandora does is allow you to create stations of your favorite arist or type of music. Pandora will then play that artist and other artists sharing a similiar musical style.  In addition, the site has different tabs that display the lyrics of the song, the history of the band and then tells you of similar artists. You can add/edit/rename the stations.
If you subscribe to it on your computer, there is nothing to download. Just login when you want to listen to the music. If you find something you like - you can of course buy it right there at Pandora via Itunes.
Pandora apps can be found on the Iphone, Itouch, Blackberry and other devices.

So, when you have a few minutes and nothing to do - check it out. The website is pandora.com.
 Everyone needs a little music in their lives. There are a number of similar stations out there so if Pandora doesn't do a lot for you but you like the concept check out Slacker.   It offers a bit more but I think it tends to be a bit more commercialized and advertisement-laden (that is solely my opinion).
If you aren't into music but into the technology and business side of startups etc. then you may find this NY Times article interesting . It is entitled How Pandora Avoided the JunkYard.

Cheers!