There are almost as many music platforms as there are social media networks now — and many that are combinations of both. We decided to take a step back and outline the good and the bad out of all the music platforms we've been juggling around.
Raditaz: Always eager to try out the new guys, we checked out Raditaz as soon as we read about it. It's similar to Pandora where you create stations. You can also listen to top hits stations or find music by genre, decade or whatever is trending.
It doesn't have social media integration yet so you can't follow your friends or share music automatically through the platform which could be a plus or minus depending on whether social is important to you.
Turntable FM: Although this has lost its "just-released" hype we still like to visit Turntable FM now and again because of the gaming aspect of it. It's fun to rack up points and play DJ with friends.
To get into the more popular rooms, you can wait hours before a spot opens to DJ. Sometimes people play bad music and you either have to sit through it or switch rooms unless you can get enough people to give it a thumbs down. It's an involved process so it's not the best platform for leaving on and just plugging away at work.
Pandora: Surprisingly we're not all about the platforms that let us create our own music lists entirely from scratch. Sometimes it's nice to have someone mix it up for you. As fun as it is to have our friends mix music for us on Turntable, sometimes Pandora knows what we like better than they do. It's also a great way for discovering new music.
The downside is you can't really save the music anywhere on Pandora to listen to it, you have to either buy it or wait until it's played again.
Dropbox: Yes we know what you're thinking. Why would you use Dropbox for music? Oddly enough, a group of friends and I share music through Dropbox. It's an easy way to be more exclusive, only those invited can see and access the files, and you can get all files at once and download them onto your own iTunes library.
However, it is a bit old school to be using a tool like Dropbox for music sharing when other platforms like Spotify have integrated so much social sharing onto their platform.
Spotify: Which brings us to Spotify. Although we love and still use all the platforms listed above, currently our favorite may have to be Spotify. It provides the best "across all channels" type experience with the iTunes library and Facebook integration.
The music selection isn't the largest on Spotify and there are certain songs that we were able to get on Grooveshark but not on Spotify. However we like the interface design better and overall it's a more user-friendly experience.
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I've been using spotify for a while now and I agree that the interface is wonderful. Another awesome thing is if you are still using Pandora, You can transfer your Thums-up list to Spotify! Here's the link for the transfer instructions. Cheers!
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/spotify-has-been-out-for-153117
I love my Spotify premium account, but I'm curious why Rhapsody never gets mentioned. It was in the US before Spotify and has a rather large library. I had it a long time before switching to Spotify and it was pretty good. It's worth a mention. Rdio is also worth a look.
I spend my days going between Spotify and Turntable FM. I like having complete control in one and very little in the other. I completely agree with your descriptions of each platform.
Wouldn't using dropbox to share music files be illegal, technically? Just saying.
none of those work in Brazil.
I like to use http://stereomood.com/ and http://grooveshark.com/
I have never downloaded music after I started using grooveshark.
I prefer Last.fm. They have way more non-mainstream music than any others it seems. It's helped me discover some great artists.
I subscribe at $3 a month now so I can listen to it on my Sonos home system. But if I didn't have Sonos, there isn't really a need to subscribe.
And yes, sharing copyrighted files on dropbox is illegal and you should remove it from this post.
(My job is an Internet copyright infringement specialist.)
*Ahem* Should you perhaps not advocate copyright infringement?
I'm with violetveil-- Last.fm is where I get most of my new tunes.
If they aren't worried about burning copies of their CDs and DVDs (see previous posts) and giving away/selling the originals, they aren't going to worry about posting that they illegally share music files via Dropbox...
Last.fm and stereomood and 8tracks are great for finding new artists I have spotify downloaded on my computer but I never use it. And I always use pandora on my phone when I'm at work.
I use Jango. Pandora stopped allowing Canadians to use their services a few years ago..
I use Dropbox to transfer MP3s from my PC to my laptop. It's not that big a leap to go from that to sharing among devices that I don't own. I don't do it, but doesn't that just illustrate how hard it is for those horrible organisations like RIAA and MPAA when they try and control what you're doing with your music?
Apparently mix tapes are illegal now.
@sickspeed - I think you are confusing the fact of legality with the chance of actually getting prosecuted for it... I would guess, if someone really wanted to be a d!ck, they could have busted someone for giving away a mix tape back in the 80's.
Agree with Robertgeistlinger; i've been a Rhapsody user for years, and it's always been pretty good.
I also love last.fm! After scrobbling for a while, the mix of my own radio + recommended tracks is almost always spot-on.
Also on the last.fm train.
I've only ever tried 8tracks and like it a lot. I might give some of the others a go. Surprised to see 8tracks hardly mentioned, it also now has an Android app available.
how could rdio not be included?! Perfect design and incredible selection of indie and mainstream music.
http://www.rdio.com/
This post couldn't have come at a better time! I've just gotten a smart phone and figured out how to transfer sound on my work computer to headphones. (IT had some crazy mess going on where we couldn't control our sound.) I'm glad someone mentioned 8tracks. I've had better experience with that than with Pandora so far, but I'm excited to try some new ones.
Personally I think Grooveshark is the best of the lot. The selection is wide, you have the ability to upload your own music and when hosting a party, the crossfade option is an invaluable tool to ensure no gaps between songs.
Completely agree with "semitransparent" : rdio is best in class imo
I've been hooked on Raditaz. They just added some cool new features. You can create a station with up to 5 songs or 5 artists. You can also use the popularity sliders to discover new music or listen to more popular tracks.