Pandora lets you create online radio stations based on artists or songs. Using technology from the Music Genome Project it plays song “similar” to the song/artist you start with. You can “train” the station by telling it if you like or dislike the songs it chooses. The interface is clean and simple and the “payoff” is immediate because the songs start playing right away.

The other songs in each “station” are not chosen by similarities to what other users have chosen (like most other similar Internet services) but by similarity of dozen’s of characteristics determined by trained musicologists as part of the Music Genome Project. The result is that the “station” will play many song by artists you are not familiar with but that will be similar to your starting song or artist. This is a great way to discover new music and it works really well.

I have about a half dozen stations and I listen to Pandora now pretty much all the time that I am on my computer.