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Jango Steps Up to Compete with Pandora

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

November 13, 2007, 8:34 AM

Personalized free radio service Jango launched its public beta on Monday. Using a single artist as a "seed," the site generates a list of similar artists, which the user can be tailored to his or her preferences and create "stations" to share with others...Sound familiar?

If Jango does show a difference from the Music Genome Project's Pandora, it's in the social networking aspect, though it may be slightly less developed than it is on Last.fm. Users create their stations and profile, meeting like-minded friends in the aptly-named "Like Minds" category. Users can see who is listening to their stations live, and communicate with them via "thank you" notes.

An immediate annoyance with the site is the tendency for browsers that are not Firefox to randomly crash when using Jango. Users, however, are warned of this upon signup.

Presently, Jango is browser-based only - or FireFox based, if you like - but after its public launch, it plans to introduce a mini-player and a Facebook and MySpace embeddable "Jango Jukebox" widget. Fortunately, the site is noticeably faster than Pandora, and signup currently requires no confirmation, making casual use almost immediate.

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By alanpalmer

posted Jan 15, 2008 - 3:22 PM

I like it. I could never get last.fm to work properly, and it seems more easily configurable than Pandora. It doesn't seem to have so large a selection as Pandora, though, as has been mentioned. A couple of my favourite bands couldn't be found. I'm rather ancient, though, so part of the problem may be that. Works fine in Opera.

Score: 0

By dkratter

edited Nov 13, 2007 - 1:59 PM

This sounds pretty good so far. I like that I can pick a specific song and it'll play right away, something that Pandora doesn't usually do. The interface needs some work, as certain things are buried and difficult to find. Also, the music selection doesn't seem to be quite as large as Pandora's.

Overall, this will definitely give Pandora a run for it's money.

Score: 0

By PhoenixPath

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 2:15 PM

Well, they have Psychostick and They Might Be giants....but they don't have Harvey Danger or Scatterbrain.

It's pretty much a crap shoot when looking for non-mainstream artists.

Score: 0

By jengroff

edited Nov 13, 2007 - 12:28 PM

Jango works on IE 6 and 7 too. And FF for Mac and PC. Just not on Safari yet.

Score: 0

By PhoenixPath

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 2:14 PM

Firend of mine had issues with IE6, but that could very easily be his own fault. (I coudln't get it working in IE6 on that system either)

Works great in Firefox for him though. Works fine in IE on my machine as well.

*shrug*

Safari? Feh...who cares? :p

Score: 0

By NULLedge

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 12:10 PM

sweet. i love pandora. competition is a great thing.

Score: 0

By PhoenixPath

edited Nov 13, 2007 - 2:51 PM

Excellent service.

Only been using it for 2 hours now, but I have 2 stations set up with 15-30 artists. Sharing them with a few friends. Great quality, decent design.

As stated below, Pandora ain't got nothing on these guys.

A friend had some issues with it using IE, but it works fine for him in Firefox...go figure, it's still beta.

Shouts don't seem to display on the player like it says they will, probably still working on that.

Created a station to try to mimic XM's BoneYard, and for some reason it wanted to play "Heart" (The artist)....not so sure about that one. :p

{EDIT}

Volume normalization REALLY sucks. I am constantly reaching for the volume knob. Seriously considering going back to my own playlist in Foobar (replaygain normalizations) to give my speakers a break...

Score: 0

By horsecharles

edited Nov 13, 2007 - 11:30 AM

I like this much better than last.fm-- much more user-editable/customizable, less copyright restrictions...

...besides of course, other points made here re better sound, etc.

Plus, I don't find the selection lesser, as the article states.

As well, the artist/album image provided(not always available though) is a plus.

There might be a tiny glitch at times, when the artist name/music title does not correspond with what's playing-- happens when a song is paused / re-started.... and multiple songs get played simultaneously once in a while(usually when skipping more than one song before previous one ends). I'm sure glitches will get ironed out-- this service is so new-- not worried at all.

All in all, many kudos.

Score: 0

By BBQReview

edited Nov 13, 2007 - 10:34 AM

I have been using Jango for about a month now during the private beta, and it BLOWS AWAY Pandora and Last.fm. The music discovery control is way better -- so I practically always hear music I like, from my selected bands and new ones too. I play it all day at work. Kudos to Jango for a great FREE Internet radio site!

Score: 0

By yokozuna

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 10:01 AM

I do wonder what audio codec they use. It sounds definitely better than last. fm (mp3 128 cbr) - more pleasant, warmer and with more extended bass. I suspect Ogg Vorbis. Anyway, my thumb up!

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 3:06 PM

No, Jango is just mp3 but at 192 cbr, so a little better than 128 but not a huge difference. You may be noticing more bass because you have to turn your volume up with Jango due to their low normalization level (as an earlier poster has noted).

Score: 0

By yokozuna

posted Nov 14, 2007 - 3:59 AM

Thanks, you explained me everything.

I do not think the normalisation influences the band proportions. I think it is somehow similar to most radio stations in Europe with a lot of upper bass. More and more Europeans listen to the music in the car only, so the speakers & acoustics are so-so. Therefore the broadcasters boost upper bass, because it is the lowest band which can be reproduced. There are some radio stations like BBC which broadcast music "as is" but some people complain that they sound unimpressive. No wonder, because the bass is "slimmed" if compared to other stations.

Score: 0

By spiked

edited Nov 13, 2007 - 3:06 PM

(oops, deleted duplicate)

Score: 0

By Galway

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 9:55 AM

actually quite a nice site to listen to while at work. Played some cool tunes that I wouldnt have played and found the site pleasing to use.

Bookmarked ...

Score: 0

By PhoenixPath

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 9:36 AM

Don't make us google it. Link the darn thing.

We're lazy. Cater to that laziness. :p

Score: 0

By Avion Airplane

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 9:51 AM

there is a link see it in blue :=)

Score: 0

By PhoenixPath

posted Nov 13, 2007 - 11:26 AM

Sure. NOW there's a link. :p

Score: 0

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