Pandora Radio

A buddy just turned me onto a cool new Internet music service, Pandora Radio. Here you just enter in the name of a favorite band or song and you'll be treated to hearing similar bands or songs play.

For example, I typed in Hootie & the Blowfish (shocker, I know). The first song I heard was a HBF song, followed by some Counting Crows, Goo Goo Dolls, Sister Hazel, and Barenaked Ladies. I've also heard artists/songs for the first time, like Cardinal Trait, which sounds pretty good.

The free version is advertiser supported, so there are ad banners on the page. You can avoid that mess by having it open in a separate window or, if you roll like this, a separate tab in your browser.

I could see this as a great tool for parties, vacations where you can't bring your CD collection, or any occasion where you want a little variety, but not skew too far from the norm.

I encourage you to go check it out for yourself. Here's my profile page.

Oh, some Toad the Wet Sprocket just came on...nice.