Folks who know things - help me!

[tzikeh]

What is the difference between Pandora, Blip.fm, and Last.fm? Do you use them? Which do you like? Why?

Comments

[moonpupy.livejournal.com]

I've only used Pandora so far. It's easy to create play lists, though I'm finding I'm only listening to my Beach Boys one lately, lol. It's easy to reject songs I don't like, I have found new artists through it, and - the biggie - I can use my pc, my droid, and my tv (via Kudu) to get the same music any way I want.

This entry, however, is relevant to my interests. I'm willing to learn more about the others.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

i love pandora. you tell it what you love, and it plays music for you in browser/app. i can provide links to my pandora stations. pandora has gotten me into new music that i then love. i use it basically every day. last.fm... you play your own music and is listens to what you are listening to, and makes recommendations? i used it many years ago and dropped it completely for pandora. blip i don't know about

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen either in a year or two. Back then, I used last.fm, then Pandora. Pandora rules.

It's been too long to remember specifics, but, mainly, the problem with last.fm is that it tends to slide away from your preferences very quickly unless you're conscientious about rating every single song as it comes along. It's supposed to work on a "if you liked x, you might like y" basis. If you don't rate each song, it starts to slide toward z, a, b, c, and next thing you know you're listening to h. Since I only listened to last.fm while I was cataloging, it just turned into too much distraction.

Pandora rules.

[beebalm.livejournal.com]

LOVE Pandora. As everyone has said, it's great for finding new music that I like...or just playing a narrow slice of stuff I like. I like the specificity, and the ability to easily weed out songs/artists I don't like if they pop up on my station. I'm listening to my A Capella Station right now. :)

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

I've only tried Pandora, and quite like it. One thing I like is that you can have different channels -- I have one for all acoustic music, which I find easier to work to (singing distracts), and another for more folk to rock stuff. It is very good at finding what you might like, based on what you tell it about your likes. It also cracks me up that when you tell it you don't like a song, it comes back with a sincere apology and a promise to never inflict the offending song on you again...ever!

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

I use Pandora and love it! I haven't tried the others, so I have no idea how they compare, but I listen to Pandora almost constantly. It's very satisfying when you finally get a station juuuuust right.

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

I don't use blip.fm, and am not entirely sure what it is.

I rarely use Pandora, mostly because I'm really, really, really picky about the music I listen to and I don't actually enjoy surprises. Which is not to say that Pandora is bad. Their process of finding music that sounds good together is really well done. The process of creating and shaping a customized channel is interesting. I'm also impressed by how little bandwidth gets used by their streaming format. The commercials are not overwhelming nor are they obnoxious. So that was nice.

Last.fm I use every single day, but not to stream music. I use it to track & analyze my listening habits. I use three different browser addons (to catch as many different in-browser music plays as possible) and the stand-alone audio scrobbler. I've never really tried their streaming services.

[luminosity]

I use Pandora. I'm able to set up playlists, "sounds like" lists, reject songs I don't like, etc. It's easy to find "PLAY," as well.

[stevenglassman.livejournal.com]

I know I'm ten days late, btu I like, love, and use Pandora. I use it constantly while at work, and even stream it to my phone which is plugged into my car stereo for on-the-road tunes. Oh, and my TiVo will stream from Pandora too. Almost forgot that one. :)

I don't use Last or Blip, so I can't speak for those to compare, though.

Editing again to add: One of the other commenters mentioned the commercials on Pandora. I paid the fee for Pandora One, which was $36 for a year. This allows me to use an Adobe Air app rather than streaming in a browser while at work. It also strips out commercials entirely. **Completely** worth the three bucks a month.