Navigating the Musical Web

The world of online music is constantly changing  as new software and services seem to appear on a weekly basis. Keeping up with the latest and greatest can be difficult and often overwhelming. So we've sorted through the best services on the web right now to find our current favorites.

Pandora

Pandora Radio was born out of the Music Genome Project - a project to categorize and classify musical attributes and then identify similar music based on it's musical 'genes'. As a Pandora user you start by selecting a band or song that you like and you create a Pandora Station. Based on that starting point the software behind Pandora identifies other songs that match it based on the musical 'genes'. The result is a constant stream of music that you should enjoy. You can interact with the station by giving songs a thumbs up or down and that will help tune your station further or you can simply leave it running. If you really like a song that is playing there is also a 'Buy' option where you can instantly purchase the song or related album.

Pandora is only a radio station, you can't upload your own music and you're limited to the music that Pandora has licensed in it's significant catalog. However, it's a great way to discover new bands and access music at work or when on the go - add their app to your smartphone and you can get Pandora anywhere anytime.

Grooveshark

Started back in 2006, Grooveshark is another free online service that allows you to compile and access a music library from anywhere. Unlike Pandora, you can build your music library from both songs that are already available through Grooveshark or you can upload your own tracks to your library.

Grooveshark also throw in some social networking elements with the ability to add Grooveshark friends and share music between friends. Above all else, Grooveshark wins fans with it's ease of use. With an interface reminiscent of the iTunes browser, new users can quickly start using the service and organising music. The one major downside is its current lack of mobile applications, but, a slow roll-out on certain platforms is starting to be seen. Despite that, it's ease of use should continue to attract many new users and Grooveshark's continuing ability to sign licensing deals with major record labels should ensure its longevity.

Jukefly

Jukefly is a free software service that allows users to access their personal music library anywhere anytime over the internet. By creating a Jukefly account and downloading the software, users can play any music contained on a PC over the web. Jukefly's software indexes and syncs your music library and stores the data on their servers. All of the song data is then available in your account from any web browser once you have logged in to Jukefly. Imagine sitting at your desk and being able to access your music library at home - with Jukefly you can do that.

Should your home internet connection go down, Jukefly will search it's own online music catalog (which users can also access) to find another version of the song you are trying to play. This means that the vast majority of your music library will be available to play even if the PC is offline.

There's currently no Mac version of the Jukefly software so many users are currently prevented from using the service and it's unclear when a Mac version will be available. However, Jukefly has the potential to revolutionise the way users access and consolidate their personal music libraries.

What's Next?

2010 should see some major leaps forward in online music services. Whether that is the eventual US availability of the much lauded "iTunes Killer" Spotify (you can read more about that service here), a major iTunes improvement by Apple, or some other as yet unknown service, the three services we've highlighted here will remain at the forefront of the online music world for the foreseeable future.