Computers - our new radios
Richard Nieves, '13 | Staff Reporter
Issue date: 2/19/10 Section: Lifestyle
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There are a number of ways to find new music. We have word of mouth, walking by someone playing a song from their car radio or dorm room, and Internet radio sites like Pandora and Last.FM.
Platforms such as the Xbox 360 or social networking beasts like Facebook and Twitter have integrated Internet radio in order to catch the audiences who use them the most. Like the office worker who needs jazz to get her productivity up, or the college student who needs his juices flowing as he's writing a 10-page research paper.
Microsoft has taken Last.FM and integrated it with their Xbox 360 video gaming system. Gold Subscription holders can link their Last.FM account to the Xbox 360 and listen to all their custom stations or choose others suggested by the site. The addition of listening to your station while playing games would have been much appreciated.
Others sites actually help you find new music on the Web. One of those sites is called RadioTuna, which hosts thousands of Internet radio sites. You can search using an artist's name, a song title, the entire album or the genre you want to hear. It changes the way you hear online radio by not just allowing listeners to listen to a data base they have built, but host an array of names all around the online world in order to expand your music experience.
The Web is not the only way you can enjoy online music databases. Computer applications you can download like Boxee, allow users to listen to online radio with the comfort of their desktops. Luckily, not only do these applications make it easy to listen to your favorite songs and new ones at the same time, they also have multimedia functionality. You can not only listen to music, but watch movies and view photos as well.
The cell phone market has also become a major hot spot for online radio. The premise is that you can listen to your favorite online radio channels anywhere, anytime. Last.FM, Pandora and other popular Internet radio applications have hit such tremendous platforms like the iPhone, the large line of Blackberry phones, Palm and Android. Thanks to 3G coverage and better data plans, people can listen to their online music almost anywhere.
Students need things instant and fast in order to concentrate on other things like studying, working hard and being students. Online radio has made it easier to pull up music and jam to your own tune fast and at your pace, your time.