If you’re a music lover, you should check out Pandora.com. It’s the fruit of the Music Genome Project which has been cataloguing music for the last 5 years, and grouping the works of different artists based on it’s musical “genes”; which a gene being anything that affects the identity of a song, be it harmony, melody, rhythm, arrangement, lyrics etc.
You create your own radio channel by selecting a favourite song or band, and Pandora will start playing songs by different artists based on their similarity to your original choice. You get an option with every song to specify whether you like or dislike the song and this affects the next song Pandora plays for you. Great concept, and a great way of getting introduced to different artists who play the sort of music you like.
You can pay for the service or go for the free (with advertising option). I’m playing with the free one and haven’t seen any ads yet. Great idea, I’ll be visiting there more often i think.