The reviews below were a part of an assignment designed to help students to focus on editing and clarity in their writing for their English 130 course. It also gave them a chance to think about a public audience who might use this information, and since they are studying social media, it introduced them to potential sites that could be useful in their own work and research. The results are ours to enjoy. Please leave a comment if you find any of the reviews to be of particular interest or help.
Pandora by Mary Hansen
Pandora is a Web 2.0 site that is like a radio station that plays only music you like. It is easy to use and basically does the work for you. You simply type in a song or artist you want to hear and Pandora plays music relating to that. All you have to do is create a username and password so it can save your music profile, and you have access to an unlimited amount of music. You can discover all sorts of new songs and artists this way. The only downside to Pandora is that sometimes when you type in a song you want to hear, Pandora won’t play it immediately. It will play a song relating to the song you wanted to hear. Also if you don’t like a song that is playing and want to change it, Pandora only lets you do so a certain number of times. Other than that Pandora is the perfect Web 2.0 site if you just want to kick back and listen to an endless library of your favorite music.
Songza.fm by Taylor Marshall
Songza.fm is a music search engine that offers a wide variety of music. How it works is you either search an artist, band, or even a song that you want to listen to then you are given a list of songs most of the songs on the list that is displayed is taken from you tube. The you tube video can be seen in the upper right corner. One other great benefit is that you can sign up with Songza and create your own playlist from the list of songs that you searched. As for the rest of the website it is pretty simple compared to other similar websites that I have used in the past such as Project Playlist and imeem. Songza ha much potential, but it seems to me as if it is another website without much to it. The features it offers are not that great. If it had a few extra features to it like song lyrics and maybe album covers then I could definitely say this website is worth your time, but I don’t see why anyone would go to this website when there are websites out there with the same features and more.
TubeRadio by Brett Edwards
Do you like Music? How about Youtube? If so then your going to love this.TubeRadio.fm is an online tool that brings a whole world of music and video to the click of your mouse. This is a music player where users can quickly and efficiently find and listen to music by their favorite artists, while building and sharing playlists of all their beloved music. The innovative tool is 100% free, and very user friendly. You simply type the name of a band into the search bar, and wa-la, the band’s albums are brought to you to listen to (or watch) in mini or full screen selection. This ground breaking music interface also allows you to sort through what you like and don’t like, leaving behind a compilation of high quality videos that you can assort under one playlist. Once you create a good foundation of music, this site then runs much like a combination of iTunes and Youtube, a Blend of modern social media like none have seen before.
TubeRadio.fm by Natasha Adam
Through using Web 2.0, I discovered a site called TubeRadio.fm. This free and easy site allows users to search and save music found from the popular site called YouTube. On the bottom of the homepage, a demonstration video is open for rookie’s to learn how to use this site’s unique tools and information. In the introduction of this video, the commentator explains there are two types of searches: YouTube and Discography. The YouTube search is used to find an artist’s name, a name of a song, or both and then from a listed selection of songs a person can save a song onto their playlist. The playlist categorizes songs by video name, artist, and album. In contrast, the Discography search is used to add albums, which then will display releases created by the artist, a bio, lyrics of the song, and similar genres of music. Following an album addition, a user may edit the song’s information or replace a song with a better version of the song. In conclusion, this site was very well organized and provided a plethora of resources for finding new and old music.
Moof.com by Marcus Mancuso
Moof.com is a Web 2.0 site which offers a large database of music, easily accessible via the internet. “Moof” stands for music,online,on demand, for free. Moof allows users to search for music, which they can then add to their own personal online library. The layout is very simple and user-friendly. The homepage greets new users with a tutorial video, giving a quick overview of the site. Moof boasts that it has a formidable and extensive database of music. To test this, I searched for songs from a virtually unknown band that my friend Chris’ cousin was in. To my surprise, Moof had it. You can also upload your own iTunes library from your computer, so you can access it from any computer through the internet. Unfortunately, if you have a large song library, it takes a while to upload all of it. I gave up after 5 minutes of attempting to upload my 3000 song library. Moof is a very useful way to listen to, store, and discover new music, without taking up massive amounts of hard drive space.
Imeem by Melanie Higgins
Imeem is a social networking site designed with music as its main focus. Since its creation in 2003, it has thousands of users that upload and share music every day. I have been using Imeem for two years, and am constantly finding new music, creating playlists, and posting opinions and comments on the site. My favorite feature is the “play a recommended song” button. This feature sorts through all the songs in your preexisting libraries, to identify new songs that you might enjoy. Music is free with an online membership to the site. One thing that could be improved is the fact that when a song is downloaded incorrectly the site marks it as a 30 second song instead of a full-length song. Also the site doesn’t clearly mark the official song, and many unnecessary covers of the song show up in replacement. Although music cannot be downloaded off of the site, it directs you to Itunes in order to purchase it. The quality of the website is very good. It is a great way to find and share music.
Tuberadio.fm by Mike Tomin
Tuberadio.fm: Online Music Organized and Accessible
Over time, not only has music evolved, but the way people listen to music has become more user oriented. It started with sites like Pandora, where users could give the name of a song or artist, and a playlist was created based on their taste. When introduced, Pandora was popular among internet users. This evolved into similar sites, as well as Apple’s own “Genius”, a tool implemented into iTunes to help users find music they may like. After playing with a new site, Tuberadio.fm, I have noticed advantages it possesses over tools such as Pandora and Genius. Tuberadio.fm organizes music that is available in the Youtube library and makes it readily available to anyone who has access to a computer with internet connection. It works similar to Pandora, yet Tuberadio takes it a step further and allows users to pick individual songs to add to playlist. Playlist can then be saved to their accounts and accessed from any computer. The best part about this service is its completely free and convenient, as well as contains a huge database of music.
TubeRadio by Samantha Bailey
The tuberadio.fm site is like YouTube.com in that it will find music and videos that one is searching for. It’s a great concept of strictly music where one can create their own play lists. It’s free to sign up and make a “profile” where one can have their favorite music waiting for them to click “play” and enjoy.
While navigating this site, it was very easy to get the concept and use. There was a “how to” video on how to find and make your own play lists. I liked it so much that I signed up and created my own screen name so I could listen to whatever music I want at any time from my computer. The only problem I found with the site is that a few of my favorite songs (mostly rap and hip hop) weren’t under the artists’ names. In order to find them, and some I never did, I had to specifically enter the name of the song. Despite the songs that weren’t on the site, a good variety of songs were available.
Guitarati by Willis Farnsworth
Guitarati is a wonderful site for music listeners who see music in colors. If you’re in a dark mood, feel free to choose the darker colors. If you’re in a romantic mood, choose red. Or, if you’re in a jolly mood choose yellow. By relating music to color, you are able to combine the two to accurately express feelings and emotions. The site is set up in an orderly manner. As you scroll down, there is a barrage of colors. You decide upon your mood and make a choice. After doing so, a list constructs itself underneath the colors. From this list, you see a list of songs. If you feel like limiting your search, you can select the scroll bar and choose your favorite music genre. Artist can upload their own music and select their own price for the song. Every time their song is played or bought, they earn money, 75% of all earnings and they are transferred into their account. There is a lot of promise in this website and it is all just a click away.
Last.fm by Kinsey Avery
Last.fm is a helpful website for finding out information about artists that you are interested in or are already fans of. One can choose from all different genres of music. The website tells you all of the artists top albums, other bands similar to them and if they are on tour and allows you to make shout outs. The website give a bibliography of the artist, what type of music they play and shows pictures. There is also a Hype chart, which is of artists who are building buzz. Last.fm has free music downloads and videos accessible. The purpose of the website is clear: one types in a band or artist they like, then the website recommends music, videos, and concerts based on what they listen to. I think overall the website is a good idea because it is fast and easy to use. I liked that the website gave information about the artist because it makes it easy to follow them. Overall the website is very helpful when searching for new or old artists.
Skreemr.com by Leah Arreguin
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a website were one could discover, create and share music? At Skreemr.com all of this is made possible. Apart from being the world’s greatest mp3 search engine it is also easy to use and very accommodating. The home page displays a tool bar where one simply types in the name of their favorite song or band and with one click you get a very good and lengthy list of songs and bands that are similar to the song or band that you like. Once you find something that you like, one can download it as a ringtone or onto an mp3 player. This search engine also provides an “audio rank” which is a scoring system capable of picking out the best sound quality. In addition, the site also offers upcoming artist/musicians the chance to display their music for people to view. From all of this, people are able to create and discover music and share what they have found with friends, family…etc. For these reasons, Skreemr is an excellent Web 2.0 tool for those who have passion and love for music.
TubeRadio by Sarah Machado
TubeRadio is like a combination of YouTube and iTunes. After signing up for an account, users can search for a song or artist and all of the albums that they have will come up. Like iTunes, users can add and remove albums to and from their playlists. Users can also share playlists and rename them. By clicking on a song, users can edit its name and artist. Like YouTube, after clicking on a song in your playlist, the music video for the song comes up for you to watch and rate. Users also have the option to watch the video in high quality and full screen. When watching a video, users can look at the song’s lyrics on the side, read the biography of the song, and view similar songs to the video they are watching. On TubeRadio, users have access to all videos that are on YouTube; there is an option of buying the albums on Amazon, but to listen to them on TubeRadio it’s free! TubeRadio seems like a cool new way to listen and share music online.
TubeRadio by Dalton Stokes
I chose to review the TubeRadio website because I am a huge fan of music. Once on the site I immediately noticed how easy it is to search for songs and artists. The layout it quite similar to iTunes so I caught on very fast. Essentially, the site is a database for all music posted on Youtube. By typing in any artist, one can chose from a number of albums and songs, also there is a little streaming video in the bottom left corner. One of the best features of the website is the ability to instantly create a play list. Each time an artist is searched and an album is added, a new play list is formed in a column on the left. These allows the user to go back to artists they have previously searched and listen to songs without looking them up a second time, similar to internet history. They only downside to the site would be how many songs one can actually listen to. Not all the songs can be found on Youtube, therefore one might only get 15 out of 20 songs from a certain ACDC album.
Technology & Learning Program - Chico State 