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Pandora.com – Internet radio done right

Jan 30, 2010 Technology, Things I like

Have you ever wished that you could own your very own radio station? Just imagine, you could program the station to play only the kind of music you love best. Hear a song you don’t like? Since it’s your radio station you can instruct the “DJ” to never play that song again – ever! Like a song but you’ve heard it one time too many lately? Simply tell the “DJ” not to play it again for a month. What’s more, would you like to be able to listen to your station virtually anywhere in the world on your PC or smartphone? Guess what? Now you can!

Well, you won’t really own a physical radio station, but you can “own” the next best thing. A wonderful service named Pandora lets you create your very own Internet radio station where you pick the music genre, the performers and the songs that you want to hear! In fact, you can create several radio stations, each of which plays a different genre of music. Say for instance today you really feel like listening to some Bluegrass. Just “turn on” your Bluegrass station. But if you wake up tomorrow wanting to hear some Classic Rock, just “turn on” your Classic Rock station. Want to hear some gospel on Sunday morning? Well, you get the picture…

I first heard about Pandora while listening to a weekend talk radio show that I tune in to on occasion. The host was describing the site to a caller, and it sounded rather interesting so I made a mental note of the URL (I was driving at the time). Then I promptly forgot about it. But a few weeks later the URL popped back into my head so I clicked over to Pandora to check it out. Within five minutes I was completely hooked.

You can check out Pandora for yourself at www.Pandora.com. The service is absolutely free, and signing up takes all of about 20 seconds. Within two minutes you can have your first radio station set up and playing your favorite music over your PC or smartphone!