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A music site founded in the U.K. in 2002, last.fm has over 30 million active users enjoying its music recommendation services. Skewed towards audiophiles and concert-goers, last.fm houses a wealth of information on your favorite artists, providing photos, videos, bios, ringtones, news, charts, events, an option to purchase songs and add them to your library, radio stations that play similar artists, concert images and info, users listening to that artist, shoutboxes, journals, kitchen sinks. Okay, maybe not that last one, but still, an option-heavy site that can be easily customized using tools and plugins.
The last.fm music library contains well over 12 million individual tracks, and features The Scrobbler – an algorithm that helps you discover more music by examining the details of the songs you’ve listened to. It also automatically fills your library and updates it with what you’ve been listening to on your computer or iPod (if you have the last.fm music player app, the audioscrobbler plugin or are listening to the last.fm internet radio). Last.fm will also recommend concerts and events to users, as well as give them information on top music charts, a radio station creation option, and a community (forums, Twitter integration, last.fm groups).
Pricing: Free for users in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. Others require a subscription.
Availability: Web browser, Mac OS, Linux, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Sonos, Squeezebox, PS Portable, Nokia N900, Zune.
MOG is a paid subscription service and blog network that streams over 11 million tracks, and allows users to read content from user posts, music blogs and in-house editors. Users create profiles with information about their musical preferences and can read other users posts, recommend users with similar tastes and listen to 30 second samples of songs. Any song in MOG’s catalogue can be streamed to a users computer via their web browser, MOG will generate a continuous play queue based on the artist chosen by the user.
Partnered with Rhapsody, MOG enables users to create, share and discover playlists, and create radio stations (including 100% artist only stations). Users can log in with Facebook, or share via Facebook, Twitter and email. Play, pause, skip, and go back are all controllable from a media keyboard, and MOG will allow you to broadcast to any speakers using AirPlay.
Pricing: Free 14 day trial (ad supported). Basic: $4.99/month provides access to MOG via the web and Roku with no ads. Primo: $9.99/month allows all of that and supported mobile devices.
Availability: Web browser, Desktop player (Mac only). iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Roku, Logitech Squeezebox, Boxee Box, Nook, Motorola Xoom, Jambox by Jawbone, LG internet-ready TVs.
Microsoft’s subscription music service allows users to download, stream and listen to as many songs from the Zune Marketplace as you could possibly desire. Music can be downloaded and synced on up to four different computers, Zune players and Windows Phones – and you can swap out a device every 30 days.
Although Zune Music Pass is only available on phones that use a Windows Live ID, you can stream music over the web, play them an unlimited number of times, download an unlimited number of songs to your computer, and sync an unlimited number of times to Windows Phones or Zune Players. Smart DJ gives you spontaneous playlists. However, even with all its functionality, the Zune brand has been on some shaky ground lately, with Microsoft pulling it, then not, then pulling it…then, not.
Pricing: Free 14 day trial. $9.99/month for unlimited music and music video streaming. Annual subscriptions also available.
Availability: Web browser, Zune music players, Xbox 360, Windows Phones.
Comments are closed on this article
jth
January 25, 2012 at 3:04am
"Play It Again Sam" One of the most misquoted movie lines ever...
Anyway, I absolutely love my Zune pass. I rarely stream with it but it's great to be out and hear a song I want to immediately download and play back over and over until I'm sick of it and never want to hear it again.
dethduck
January 25, 2012 at 2:21am
Bah! I'll stay old school.
Shoutcast is good enough for me.
I get plenty of "music discovery" on Groove Salad.
NcOle
January 24, 2012 at 9:53pm
Music has come so far from the days of mixed cassette tapes; thank you for the updated music playlist lesson!
NH3MAN
January 24, 2012 at 7:59pm
IMHO for basic free streaming Last FM is a standout between most of that type but I could see others preferring Spotify, Pandora, and even Slacker. I am sure the haters will disagree but if you are going to pay for it then ZUNE without a doubt is the best. Between the easy to navigate UI of the PC software, the excellent Library selection, and the superior song/playlist management there is no comparison IMVHO. I guess the reason its not popular could just be that you need a Zune Player/Windows Phone, or that its Microsoft, or even its stupid ratings system that it insists on using (love/blank/don't love...?). The ZUNE Smart DJ is awesome! I didn't think I could add too much to my 5-6 gig library but it has found a slew of new music I didn't know about or old music I had forgotten about that fits my taste so much so that I use my free 10 song each month the day I get the credits and I have hundreds more waiting. (I am grandfathered with the old $14.99 plan where I can select to permanently own 10 songs per month and I'm not giving that up if I can help it)
NH3MAN
January 24, 2012 at 10:07pm
Also wanted to mention the extras with ZUNE in addition to Music Pass such as the excellent audio or video podcast subscribing with effortless wireless sync to your device. You can even subscribe with your device sans PC. Along with the all you an eat downloading or listening you can also quickly purchase from the Marketplace if you find a keeper. OK, I might be a ZUNE fanboy but that is despite the fact that I despise MS just as much if not more than I do Google or Apple.
moko
January 24, 2012 at 8:56pm
i read that mog was great quality/good bit rate...streaming at 320kbps.....just trying out this week,and really like it so far
Morete
January 24, 2012 at 5:41pm
I miss imeem. It was the best of the best for difficult to find international songs and uploaded music was very well compressed (HQ),for being a free format.
