Our Mission

I'm starting this blog so people who are interested in downloading music on the internet can get a good idea of where to start. The number of download platforms, file formats, and types of sites that offer music downloads has grown exponentially in the last year making it difficult for people to find what they are looking for. On this blog you will be able to read and review the websites on the internet that provide people with music such as subscription based sites, search engines, peer - peer networks, music archives, internet radio, music communities, and non subscription download platforms. Please feel free to add your first hand experiences, preferences, and grievances as we try to make it easier for people to download music on a site that suits their specific needs.

Live365.com - (Internet Radio)

Live365.com is an internet radio site that allows users to create their own stations and broadcast personalized content. Some more established am and fm stations also broadcast their signal via live365 in addition to standard airwaves. Live365 relies on MP3 streaming and can be played through a variety of media players. The live365 player can be downloaded for more optimal services like enabling live in home broadcasts. Unlike many other internet radio sites, live365 is best searched by genre which produces results categorized by niche stations like jazz, country, blues, and pop. Other internet radio sites like pandora.com and last.fm are more concentrated on personalized radio play via playlist recommendation and and user tag systems while live365 focuses more on niche oriented personalized broadcasting. A great find for anyone looking to start their own radio project or interested in other people's indie radio broadcasts.
Live365.com
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Last.fm - (Internet Radio)

A personlaized radio site that formats your playlist based on what you search and play most frequently. Last.fm is a scrobbler which means songs played are logged and recommendations are calculated based on other's playlist similarities to your own. Warner music's has given the go for Last.fm to make available their entire collections. There are various stations and groups cenetered around music styles and artists.
A key charactersitc of last.fm is the unique way in which the site's algorithm finds new music based on previous song choices; the site has a built in suggestion maker. Last.fm is a great way to get aquainted with new artists similar to tagged favorite artists in the past.
Last.fm
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Pandora.com - (Internet Radio)

An automated music recommendation and internet radio service. The way Pandora works is you type in a favorite album or artist and Pandora creates a playlist based on your suggestion. Pandora will initially play the most cliche, generalized stereotype of your favorite artist and progress deeper into their catalogue along with mixing in other artists of similar genre and appeal. This service is free and can be used by anyone. One of the downsides to pandora is their binding liscenses inhibit you, the user, to skip through more than three or four songs at a time. This internet radio strikes me as a unique and effective tool for business owners who need extended playtime as wells anyone who wants to stream free hand picked music. Upon, using Pandora for an extensive period of time, I realized that their liscensed content is limited, making the site great for sampling music, but not great for music afficianados who desire the more complete catalogue for their favorite artists.
Pandora.com
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