Hello Darlings,

This is Vicky G, Libby's 18 year old sister. I'm assisting my hopelessly trend deficient sister with her quaint little blog. She begged me to write a post about the wonderful world of the Internet. I agreed after much begging and cajoling, because unlike Libby, I actually have a thriving social life. However, I carved a few minutes out of my day to enlighten Libby, and you the reader on the delightful trend of online radio.

So, on to the topic of online radio. I am sure that all of us like to indulge in our favorite music whilst on the computer to liven up other mundane tasks like school work, research, correspondence, or in my case writing a blog post for my little sister ( in jest I assure you). Listening to your own music on the computer utilizing programs like iTunes, Windows Media Player, Real Player is great until you've listened to your pathetic Mp3 collection ad nauseum, at this point may I recommend the wonderful world of online radio.

In the realm of online radio there are a myriad of choices. I haven't the time to describe the online music player of every radio station from 90.1 All Polka, All the Time to 107.9 Great Granny Hits of the 20's, 30's and a 100 yrs ago, so I am going to focus in on two general interest online only radio players.

The first player is Pandora found at http://www.pandora.com/#/stations/create/. The second player is Slacker Radio found at http://www.slacker.com/. Both stations have basic similarities. Both stations allow you to search for an artist, song, or album and create a station based on songs similar to what you have selected. Both players also have stations that are pre-built, that is you select a genre like, Music of Musicals or Hits for Toddlers (Libby's Favorite).

Here's the breakdown of the pros and cons of both players.

Pandora-Pros

1. The Music Genome Project, an interesting program that Pandora uses to figure out why you like the music that you do, and pick other similar music for based on things like, vocals and instruments.
2. No audio ads only banner type ads, so non stop music
3. Pandora seems to have a larger selection of artists, songs, and albums to choose from.

Cons

1. I've found that on Pandora if you "dislike" a song Pandora will ignore you and play it again anyway.
2. Pandora doesn't give you the option to dislike all songs by a certain artist, say Justin Bieber (sorry Biebettes).
3. Pandora's pre-built stations are hard to adjust to music you like.

Slacker-Pros

1. Excellent pre-built stations
2. Wonderful adjusting tools, like more or less hits or newer or older music.
3. The option to dislike all music by a certain artist.

Cons

1. Audio ads every few songs
2. Fewer artists than Pandora
3. Constant pestering to upgrade to Slacker's ad free subscription(monthly fee) radio.

There you go, that's my review of two excellent free online radio players. Happy listening darlings!

-Vicky G.