I have an eclectic taste in music. I like a wide variety of music including blues, jazz, rock, folk, classical and so on. I also like to discover new music, but I do not want to purchase CD's I have never heard of before. The 30 second music clips at iTunes are not long enough for me and I do not want to stand around with headphones on at Barnes & Nobles music listening stations. So what do I do? I go to Pandora.com.
Although the web site shares the same name as the infamous box, you'll be happy you opened your web browser to Pandora.com. You just need the Flash plugin (which you probably alreday have) and you are ready to go. There is nothing to download. You can create your own custom internet radio stations (up to a hundred) by entering athe name of a favorite musical artist or song. Pandora compares your entry with an extensive catalog consisting of over 10,000 artists developed by the Music Genome Project which has identified over 400 different attributes that might be assigned to a song.
The service is free with some minor advertising and links to iTunes and Amazon if you want to purchase the music it plays for you. It is great service. the music selection is extensive and right on the money in opinion in most of the selections it makes. It has exposed me to many very good artists that I had not heard of before.
If you have a Mac, check out PandoraMan. It is a small application that accesses Pandora's music player so that you do not have to keep your webb browser open.