Jango-Social Internet Radio Review

www.jango.com

Overall 5.00 of 5 (by 1 user)

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MikeMaroon
Chattanooga, TN

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MySpace meets Rhapsody. Rock On!

music lover, into trying new things, Internet User, a movie lover, a fan of good music, a classic rocker, Open-minded

Pros

Fully licensed internet radio!, Lots of songs to choose from, Fully customizable

Cons

still in beta, occasionally will stop playing

APR

2008

The perfect internet radio station has arrived. Some smart cookie melded streaming radio with social networking and came up with Jango. Direct yourself to www.jango.com and start listening, it's just that simple.

I found out about this site through PC World magazine, one of two computer mags I get (yes, "I'm a picker, I'm a grinner, I'm a lover, and I'm a computer geek. I play my music on Jango" {sorry, Mr. Miller}). I've tried lastfm.com, Rhapsody.com, and a host of others. Now, i believe I've found my internet radio heaven. Best of all, its free!!

Its ad supported and the ads are unobtrusive as side panels. They never pop up in the middle of what you are doing to distract, annoy, and otherwise make you want to pitch steak knives at the screen.

When you first go to the site, you will be asked to sign up for a free account and/or invite your friends along for the ride. You can do this with a simple click of a button, pulling your buddies' email addresses from Yahoo, GMail or Plaxo, AOL, or your Outlook/Outlook Express address books. They make it a point to tell you right up front they do not keep email addresses or spam them. And, as far as I can tell, they don't.

You then have the option to buld a profile ( and I recommend it if you want to make friends). The interface is simple, clean and easy to use. Once your profile is done, add a picture or two, if you like. Your picture or avatar will show up in the upper left corner, along with links to your profie, home page, music, and people. The music link directs you to a page allowing you to choose stations based on genre or artist. The people link takes you to a page showing others on line along with the song they are currently playing and the type of music they like. This helps you meet new people based on what I think is the greatest unifiying force on Earth, music.

First thing you want to do, though is enter one of your favorite artist's names into the box to the right of your pic on the home page. This will create a station based on that artist, which will immediately start playing. Type in "Anthrax" and a station of heavy metal music, including Anathrax will play. The best part? You can create as many stations as you want, you can control which artists are played on these stations, and save the station. Jango will intersperse some songs they recommend based on the station, but, for the most part YOU control what is played. You can even rate individual songs so that they play anywhere from frequently to "never again".

Much like MySpace, a little aviatar will show you when your friends are online (I started my account about 4 days ago and I have 6 friends already, some from halfway around the world) and you can email them, shout out to their player, or if you are the anti-social type (you aren't a serial killer are ya?), ignore them completely.

One of my favorite features runs along the top of the player. It shows some folks who are listening to music similar to the station you are playing. Just click on the picture to see their profile or on the song to start playing their station. You can go to others profiles and listen to their stations as well.

I've created 8 stations so far and named them: Growin' Up Rock (I'm listening to this one as I type this), My Country, Good Ole Country, That 70s Station, Stayin' Alive, Mike's 70s R&B Heaven, Smooth Moves and Christian Rock. If you want to check out my site:

http://www.jango.com/users/6413728?l=0

The player is still in beta, so once in a while it will just stop playing for no apparent reason, but, that's easily fixable by just hitting the "forward" button. The selection of artists and songs is impressive and grows almost daily. So, if you don't find your favorite (Sorry Paris Hilton and William Hung fans), keep checking back! Although if those two ever show up, I might have move to another planet.

Go! Make friends! Listen to music! But..try and get out of the house once in a while, m'kay?

Jango-Social Internet Radio is recommended by MikeMaroon

Comments about MikeMaroon’s Review

baabsy wrote on Apr 24, 2008 at 9:28AM

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Tis spring and music time is here...thanks to your review we are Jangoing :)

PattyTherre wrote on Apr 7, 2008 at 5:19PM

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Yeah but people will know what I am listening to and laugh at me. lol. I like Pandora but will check this one out too.

LaurieM wrote on Apr 3, 2008 at 7:09AM

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I recently discovered MSN's Pandora Free Radio and like it a lot. I will definitely check this out though.

kid-kansas wrote on Apr 2, 2008 at 10:06PM

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Thanks for the heads up Mike, this will be nice when I am surfing ;)

MikeMaroon wrote on Apr 2, 2008 at 6:37PM

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In response to mrkstvns's comment from Apr 2, 2008 at 4:35PM:

You should have no trouble finding folks on Jango with interests similar to yours. That's what the site is about!

mrkstvns wrote on Apr 2, 2008 at 4:35PM

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Hey, Mike! I've used the last.fm a bit, and was into it for a while. I might like to give this a try too, if I could find some folks with musical interests similar to mine...thanks for the recommendation!

joyjoy wrote on Apr 2, 2008 at 2:32PM

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I had heard of Jango but didn't know what it was. Thanks for the info.

baabsy wrote on Apr 2, 2008 at 11:57AM

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This sounds great Mike! I just canceled Rhapsody a few weeks ago because the site was becoming a pain in the you know what...I like the price of this one better too. Thanks for the heads up!

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Jango-Social Internet Radio Review

www.jango.com

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