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Web 2.0 is here to stay, at least until 3.0 comes along, and it has brought with it many useful websites and tools that continue to emerge on to the ever-growing scene. Some of the most popular new tools birthed from the Web 2.0 movement are music streaming websites, of which we are huge fans. But as the abilities of these sites have grown, so has the number of sites. So we thought we’d highlight some of the best and maybe ones you’ve never heard of. Whether you’re looking to just listen to your favorite bands or discover some new ones, these websites have you covered.
Pandora – www.pandora.com
Whether you’re looking to discover new music and just stream songs from your favorite bands, Pandora has become the leading destination. Search your favorite artists and Pandora finds songs in the similar style, using some scientific musical process they created. They also have an iPhone app that serves the same function, but in the portable manner.
Last.fm – www.last.fm
Like Pandora, Last.fm helps you find and listen to music from your favorite artists and recommends similar bands. However, Last.fm has pages for each artist that include profiles, videos, photos, and even concert information. Last.fm also has an Iphone app that lets you listen to your stations and even see the artist profiles and concert information.
Lala – www.lala.com
Lala is a new online streaming model that is completely ad free. You can listen to a song or album once for free or pay $.10 to listen to it indefinitely. If you want to download a song, it will cost you only $.89. However, Lala will let you listen to any song in your iTunes library on their website for free. Rumor has it that an iPhone app is on the way.
Musicovery – www.musicovery.com
Musicovery is a new project that helps you discover music based on the mood you are in. Simply select your mood based on Energetic/Calm/Positive/Dark as well as the musical time period and genres and Musicovery finds the songs for you. The library doesn’t seem too extensive, but you can install the program in your iTunes and listen to your own music based on the same mood process.
Slacker – www.slacker.com
Slacker started off selling portable internet radio players but recently expanded their internet radio to everyone, even iPhones. Much like Pandora, Slacker lets you create a radio station based on your favorite bands and helps you discover new ones. The difference is that Slacker programs the stations based on their opinion and music taste, rather than Pandora’s scientific process.
Grooveshark – www.grooveshark.com
Grooveshark lets you search any song or artist, create playlists, and even suggests similar songs. Grooveshark works like one massive shared music library of all the users. However, you have to create playlists to keep the music going or listen to other playlists. While the concept is interesting, it just ends up being a lot of work to simply listen to music.
MySpace Music – music.myspace.com
Though there’s nothing really special about MySpace Music, you can listen to music from an artists profile page and keep it looping all day. Just watch out for the inappropriate ads that plague the website.
iTunes – www.apple.com/itunes
Surprisingly many people do not know that iTunes does have radio channels you can stream for free. While you can’t control or customize these stations, you might just find your favorite radio station on there or even subscribe to the “Ambient Popcycle” station. You’ll never know until you try it.
While we think these are the best websites for music streaming, there are many more out there. For an extensive list visit http://mashable.com/2008/07/09/streaming-music-sites/