by Enigmatic

Created on: September 08, 2009

If there was ever a contest that was held for the most innovative and well-executed Internet radios, Pandora Radio would completely run the show.

At first glance, Pandora Radio looks similar to some of the other internet radios out there. However there is much more than meets the eye. The layout is quite cleverly designed. Aside from the light-blue and white color scheme, all the information you need is liberally spaced out, yet close together so you're not forced to scroll up or down the window to look for something.

Having said that, it's very easy to get started by registering and creating your own radio station. The registration process is very short and straight-forward. After finished registering, you can start listening to your favorite music. To begin, you have to create a radio station which consists of being asked to name a song or an artist. Depending on the musical style of said song or artist, the website will actually go through its library of music to find songs that are similar to the style you like.

In fact, the site even tells you how and why it picks the song lists by explaining the instruments used, how the beats are played, and so on. For example, if I'm listening to a Kings of Leon radio station, it would pick one of their songs, Camaro because it features, "...electric rock instrumentation, mild rhythmic syncopation, extensive vamping, a clear focus on recording studio production and major key tonality." Based on that information, it would pick songs by other bands/artists that share the same musical features. It's some deep stuff. The stations you listen to are also saved to your account, which will allow you to continue listening to the same radio station if you close the website or if you log out.

There are also several genres and sub-genres that have their own dedicated stations. They wouldn't be as picky about the music as opposed to the method where you can listen to artists with a similar sound to your favorite artist.

There's also a very neat feature that the makers of Pandora have provided for its users. Basically how it works is that you can host your radio station to other people, so anyone who has similar musical tastes as you might decide to listen in on your station. You can also listen in on another person's radio station. I personally found it as a great way to find out new artists that aren't mainstream, but are really good.

There's also a "thumb up" and "thumb down" system. The listeners to your radio station can "thumb up" a song if they like it, or "thumb down" if they don't like it. You can interpret this however way you want, but there's many stations that cater to the listeners based on what songs they like or don't like.

However there are a few, but minor downsides to using Pandora, except for one issue. That issue is that Pandora, like Hulu, is unable to be used outside of the US. Despite the massive demand for it in many different countries, this limitation has still remained. There are a few ways to bypass this though by using Hotspot Shield, a program that has attracted the attention of CNN, The Wall Street Journal and PC Magazine. The other issue is that you're strictly limited to the number of songs you can skip due to Pandora's music licenses.

Pandora is one of the biggest and well-known Internet radio website among its other competitors. Definitely something worth checking out if you're really passionate about your music.

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