We can find dime-a-dozen music streaming sites, but internet radio services are a rare breed.  There are times when we don’t feel like searching for something to hear or curating a playlist, internet service radio promise to press play on a genre or song based radio station and you know you are going to hear something you like.  Stated below are the 5 best internet service radio stations:

Name: Tune In

Description:  It lets you listen to live radio stations on the air anywhere in the world. From electronic stations in Europe to talk shows in Africa, you have the option to search the globe by locations, genre, station type, or even name or call sign, and start listening.

Available for: There is a ‘Tune In’ app available for Android, iPhone or iPod, Blackberry, WebOS, and Windows Phone. There is a Pro version for iOS, Android and Blackberry available for $1 which allows you to record live radio for playback later, pause live radio, rewind and more.

Name: Pandora

Description:  Pandora is the juggernaut of internet radio services. It beats other internet radio stations in terms of design and customization. The original customize radio started with the ‘music genome project’ in which it gives you great new music based on the music you already enjoy.  Once, you have entered an artists’ name or a song title, Pandora a automatically suggests similar tracks by similar musicians. One can interact with Pandora only using thumbs-up or thumbs-down, with only a certain number of skips allowed in a given time period.

Available for:  Pandora App is available for android, iOS, Blackberry, and WebOS. One can also drop in 36$/year for Pandora One, which allows unlimited skips (six per hour), higher music quality and no advertisements. Pandora is available for American computers only; machines outside USA will be blocked.

Name:  Spotify

Description: Spotify is one of the best free music service available today. Though Spotify is limited to the USA, Spain, UK and parts of Europe at this time, it is already a massive hit with listeners. It hopes to expand into other countries soon by overcoming the music licensing challenges.  Spotify is different from the other stations as it behaves like a massive external hard drive. It also reads your own music collection and playlists from your hard drives and then suggests new releases and top 10 lists.

Available for: The service is free and unlimited for six months. After that users have to play $5/month and can continue to receive free music. Spotify app is available for Android, iOS, and Symbian.

Name: Slacker

Description:  It takes customization to a whole new level. There are hundreds of genre specific channels you can play at any time. As you listen, there is an option to personalize those stations even more by providing slacker with a feedback about what you like and dislike.

Available for: iOS, Android, Blackberry, WebOS, and Windows Phone. It is available free of cost but if you are ready to pay $4/ month, you can get slacker plus which removes the ads, gives you unlimited song skips, and song lyrics. And if you are ready to pay $10/month, you can get slacker premium, which gives you everything and in addition offers on demand artist and album playback, single artist stations, and the ability to create playlists.

Name: Last.fm

Description:  It is as much as a social media experiment as it is an internet radio service.  It provides a similar service to Pandora when we consider radio, offering artist stations, stations inspired by multiple artists, or stations of music that Last.fm recommends based on your past activities.  The most unique part about it is ‘Scrobbling’ which keeps a record of everything you listen to via iTunes, phone or any personal devices and create personal charts of your very own music stats. It is like a social media platform where you can add friends and even discover new ones based on shared music taste.

Available for: Free in the US, UK, and Germany with subscriptions option for extra £3/month. In all other countries, free 50 Track trial and then subscription is required. It is available for free for Xbox Live Gold members.

Picture Reference:

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/five_best_internet_radio_services#sort-desc

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Sipra

Studying business administration, Sipra enjoys writing about anything to do with health, business, psychology, marketing and food (even though she hates almost every food in existence. She loves ranting about the most random things and also takes pleasure in spending time on social media sites.

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