There are quite a few different internet music stations to choose from. Some are free and others require a paid subscription. Some require an email address and others require you apply with your facebook account. My favorite internet music station is Pandora, which is probably one of the most popular ones out there. In my opinion, there's simply no better way to hear great music with a minimal amount of fuss.
Once you create a Pandora account (you will need an email address to do this), you simply type in a the title of a song or artist, and Pandora creates a stream of music based on your selections. With Pandora you can create up to 100 different stations. Once you've created a music station, you can customize to your specific desire. If you don’t like a song that’s being played, you can just skip it to move along to another song. If you absolutely hate it, you can give it a thumbs down, which will prevent that song from ever being played again. In contrast, if you like a song being played, give it a thumbs up to hear more just like it. The more that you interact with Pandora, the more the website begins to learn you likes and dislikes, and hones in on your musical tastes.
Most Pandora users usually just stop there. But, if you are willing to dig a little deeper in Pandora's menus and settings, you can learn some pretty cool tricks. For instance, you can choose specific genres of music to create a wide variety of music stations. Genres are a collection of artists assembled to match a specific theme. Genres range from: classical music, movie soundtracks, work-out music, and a whole lot more.
Pandora also has a cool sharing feature that allows you to share specific music tracks, or even an entire station, with other people. To share, you merely click on the Share button (located directly below the track that is currently playing), and a box appears enabling you to share via Facebook, Twitter, or Email.
One neat thing about Pandora is that it allows you to learn about music and musicians, while you are listening to their music. When a track is playing, most often you will be provided with a song's lyrics and a biography of the artist. Pandora also displays a list of similar artists, which can help you expand your musical tastes.
There are a few downsides to the free version of Pandora. First, about every 30-45 minutes the program will pause and check to see if you are still listening. To continue listening, all you have to do is click on your computer screen. But when you're lounging on the couch reading a book, it can be annoying to have to get up. Another negative is that the free version displays print ads and occasionally plays a 5-10 second video ad. For the most part, they really don't bother me, I figure that's the price you have to pay to get free stuff. If at anytime you get sick of the ads, you always have the option of upgrading to the ad-free version of Pandora for $36 per year.
If you are looking for more internet music stations, some others to check out are: Mog, Last.fm, Maestro, Spotify, and Grooveshark. While I have taken a peek at a few of these, I wasn't impressed enough to jump ship and leave Pandora. At my house, everyone loves Pandora and we all have our own accounts. That way, when any of us log-in to our computers we have our own music stations, waiting to play the music we love.
Homeschool Tech MomPandora Demo
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