Pandora and Last.fm

I've been trying out both of these music services. These are both examples of how interactive radio is starting to bloom. Both operate under a similar premise. You type in the name of a band or artist you like, they find that artist and others just like them. For example, one of my favorite bands is the Descendents. On both services I searched for them and found them plus other bands like Black Flag, Pennywise, Less than Jake, etc. A whole bunch of punk and ska bands. Both services let you skip songs you don't like which is a huge plus. You can also tag songs you do like so the service can try to match your preferences.

The services vary in how they get the music to you. For Last.fm I downloaded their player, logged in and started looking for bands. I like the standalone player idea. It will even let you use Winamp or another medai player, but it still has to launch to connect to the service. I just wish it would minimize to the system tray like winamp does.

Pandora is a web based service. Flash is required, and I'm not sure, but I think java is too. I don't like the fact that if you skip too many songs within an hour, you can't skip anymore. I think I skipped 10 songs in a row and then got a message telling me that due to their license agreement, they can't let me skip anymore songs this hour. That's a load of shit.

So, I don't have any real conclusions or recommendations, just observations. I'd say I probably prefer last.fm so far though.