Top Radio and Music Streaming Sites

The Internet can offer you a large number of online radio stations and music streaming services. You can listen to radio or your favorite music track on your computer, smart phone or tablet wherever you are.

Pandia has gathered some of the best radio, podcast and music directories and search engines available.

Most of these services are available as regular web sites, allowing you to listen to radio stations using your web browser. In the Apps and Software section we have listed some services that require you to download software in order to search and listen to music or radio programs.

Top Radio and Music Streaming Sites

  • SoundCloud: SoundCloud is a social music streaming website that allows users to listen and share their music, as well as talk with each other about them. It allows you to build your own favorite music collection.
  • Pandora: Pandora allows you to listen to radio stations that play only the music that you like. You can create radio stations based on artist, album, genre, etc. Pandora service is available only in USA, New Zealand, and Australia.
  • Spotify: Spotify allows you to listen to any music anywhere for free. It offers a premium service that allows you to listen to music offline without ads. The service is not available in all countries.
  • Deezer: Deezer is a music streaming service that allows you to listen to unlimited music anytime. It can be personalized based on your music preferences. You need to subscribe to the monthly plan to take advantage of this service.
  • TuneIn: TuneIn allows you to listen to thousands of real radio stations, or broadcast your own radio to millions of TuneIn audience. You can search for radio stations based on topic and location.
  • Last.fm: Last.fm allows you to listen to your favorite music and personalized your music-listening experience according to what you like to listen. The website provides weekly top trending artists and top music tracks.
  • iHeartRadio: iHeartRadio provides radio stations that are personalized for you, so that you only listen to what you like. You simply give your favorite genre information, and the website shows the stations that match with your music taste.
  • Rdio: Rdio is a free radio station that plays music according to your personal preferences. You can stream and download your music no matter where you are. It also provides monthly subscription service with enhanced features.
  • Songza: Songza is a website that shares worthy music moments daily. Aside from sharing the worthy music moments on the website, it also shares various news related to the music industry, including events and artists.
  • Jango: Jango provides free radio stations based on genres, such as blues, alternative, jazz, and more. You can also search for the artist and listen to their songs for free. Android and iOS apps are available.
  • Radio.com: Radio.com provides a portal to listen to various radio channels across the United States, such as B96 (Chicago), V-103 (Atlanta), KROQ (Los Angeles), and more. You can also find articles and celebrity news on the website.
  • RadioTunes: RadioTunes allows you to listen to music in various channels for free, including pop, rock, jazz, new age, and more. Each channel is managed by a Channel Director, which ensures that you listen only to the best music.
  • Rhapsody: Rhapsody is a premium music streaming website that allows you to listen to millions of music anywhere and anytime. You need to pay for a monthly subscription plan in order to use the full service from Rhapsody.
  • Live365: Live365 allows you to listen to various available free radio stations, as well as broadcast your own radio. You can build your own community with your radio station, providing high quality music and talk to your audience.
  • Slacker: Slacker is a free internet radio that provides hundreds of radio stations for you to listen to, which can be matched to your personal preferences. It provides free radio streaming service, as well as paid subscription services.
  • SHOUTcast: SHOUTcast offers thousands of online radio stations that are personalized to various music styles. You can broadcast your own radio, or choose between various available genres, such as blues, rock, reggae, rap, and more.
  • AccuRadio: AccuRadio provides an online radio streaming service that is fully customizable. It provides various channels that are created directly by music lovers, not computers. It covers various genres, such as country, world, classical, rock, and more.

Podcast Search Engines

Podcasts are all the rage. But where do you go to find the right program for you? Read on for info on podcast search engines and specialized podcasts on the search engine industry.

What’s this podcast thing anyway?

Sometimes innovation takes even the main beneficiary by surprise. Apple was not prepared for the podcast adventure.

Now, however, podcasts are integrated into their iTunes software, and more and more iPod users seem realize what podcasts are: online radio programs made by professionals and amateurs alike.

We must admit that we did not get it at first. After all, who has time to listen to long radio interviews and ramblings when you can scan the same information in minutes surfing the web?

The point is of course that you can listen to podcasts when a web browser is not available: in your car, on the plane or on the beach getting a tan.

Searching for podcasts

But how do you find them? iTunes has its own podcast database, and it is imperative for podcasters to get listed in that search engine. However, you have to use iTunes to get access to that search service.

Podcast are published in the mp3 format, and you do not need iTunes or an iPod to listen to them. You may just as well use one of the other podcast search engines and download the mp3 files onto your computer and them transfer them to the mp3 player of your choice.

Pandia has included a list of podcast search engines at our Powersearch all-in-one search page. These are the essential podcast search sites:

  • Podscope
  • Podcast.net
  • Podcast directory
  • the podcast network
  • Yahoo! Podcasts
  • feedster.com

More extensive programs are published by SEO expert Todd "Oilman” Friesen, "BakedJake" and others at SEO Rock Stars. Stay prepared for some very entertaining and informative conversations on search engines and search engine optimization, black hat or white hat.

Music Recommendation Engines

There are now a lot of music sites out there like Pandora.com and Last.fm that gather information about people’s taste in music. And they do not simply log what kid of bands or songs people search for, but how often each song is listened to and favorited and even which other songs and bands that are popular with people that like a certain artist or song. This way these sites can recommend music with a high degree of accuracy. But their search engines are not always great. Here are 3 great music recommendation engines, each with an innovative functionality and interface.

  • Tastekid: Tastekid is a music recommendation engine with a social dimension. It provides music, movies, shows, books and authors recommendations, based on your existing preferences.
  • Flokoon: Flokkoon is a visual search engine that applies its technology on data from YouTube, Fotolia and Last.fm. You click on radio buttons to choose to search for an artist (default) or a tag. When you do your search, a kind of map or web appears: The band you searched for is presented in the middle, surrounded by related bands.
  • Xiggy: Xyggy provides several kinds of search in addition to music recommendation and calls its approach item-based. You enter a query (band or artist names work better than song titles) and click the search button. The results that return do not contain info on the band you searched for or the usual 10 items of a text snippet and a link. In stead you are presented with a list of 11 band or artist names (and links to lots more). As you point your mouse to one of them, a short text appears, accompanied with an image.

Important: This is a revised and updated version of Pandia’s radio section.