DISQUS

redapple · 2 months ago

"We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S."

then, fuck you... along with hulu.

Kass · 2 months ago

I frequently use Pandora but with last.fm, I can listen to songs on demand for a certain number of times. In any event, if I had to pick any music service, Grooveshark beats Pandora, last.fm, Slacker, blip.fm, etc. ANYDAY. I've been enjoying Grooveshark's little-known status.

P.S. Noticed the poll is unfair to those outside of the U.S. I don't think people outside of the U.S. (ironically, including Mashable founder Pete Cashmore) can access Pandora.

babota · 2 months ago

Living in Europe - pandora is not a choice for me... Blip.fm is.

Zack Batist · 2 months ago

Pandora isn't even available in Canada, or anywhere outside the US for that matter. My vote is for Last.fm

Stephen Robinson · 2 months ago

Lastfm by a mile, I can't even use pandora here and all the chart features in lastfm make it a winner.

whytheam · 2 months ago

Excuse me, but what about Grooveshark? I've had better luck finding good music with them than both Pandora and Last.fm combined.

gmalvim · 2 months ago

Is this mashable website just for us residents? If so, please let us (outside north americans) know, so we dont bother you anymore. Pandora only works in the US. Last.fm wins! Also, there is blip.fm. In future polls, please remember, hulu.com only works in the us. thanks

Andrew · 2 months ago

Last.fm - I'm in the Netherlands and Pandora doesn't work here. (Some sort of copyright hoo haa.)

Luka · 2 months ago

No Pandora in Europe so Last.fm is my choice.

docspike · 2 months ago

Grooveshark is the best!Not just because its free, its feature rich with a user-friendly interface and awesome sharing options..i am surprised its not featured in the poll..

ka · 2 months ago

Pandora does not work in France, last.fm does, so last.fm wins.
However, my favorite service for music streaming is Postify by far, and I use last.fm for scrobbling

Mike Walton · 2 months ago

In general, I use Pandora more for custom station generation but I think last.fm has way more interesting and supporting features, making it the dominant force. Related, check out blip.fm for a user-generated alternative if you want to hear streaming music. It's the Twitter of the music world.

Jeremy E. Jackson · 2 months ago

I feel they are completely different in their own sense. I love Pandora for their radio feature over last.fm. But Pandora has no way to scrobble tracks or keep stats of what you have listened to.

I love them both equally for different reasons, but last.fm is way more interactive and social.

PieterVlamings · 2 months ago

Hint: In Europe people are not allowed to use Pandora, restricted by the website itself on GEO IP location. This poll might just give you a result on how much of your readers are European, therefor the results will be flawed.

QUOTE:
"Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative."

thinkCara · 2 months ago

Never used or heard of last.fm. I use blip.fm. I abandoned pandora long ago for blip.fm

Anders · 2 months ago

I use Blip.fm too and I wish they would merge or get bought up by Last.fm. Blip.fm service is nice, but it's so slim. btw. All my blip track info goes to last.fm so I can lern more about the artists.

gigcity · 2 months ago

Check out Last.fm - especially if you're an iTunes user.

Kefyn Judson · 2 months ago

I would first like them both to work on the premise that there is life outside the US and Europe. The Internet is not borderless for these guys. :(

I did get to use them both before the raised their drawbridges to the world.

I found Pandora's ability to have a streaming station based on a combination of songs and artists the more flexible of the two. However, Last.fm was available in the rest of the world longer. It's Squeezebox integration (not having to subscribe like Pandora) was a big plus for me. In the end, I vote Last.fm just on that.

Ryan Lalonde · 2 months ago

I think Last.fm wins this one. It has many features that Pandora doesn't and it's accessible all over the world, unlike Pandora.

Todd · 2 months ago

I stopped using Last.fm immediately after I found out they user information to the RIAA. I felt betrayed

Charlie Parker · 2 months ago

That was an untrue rumor. Go back.

gigcity · 2 months ago

VERY untrue

Travis Heinstrom · 2 months ago

Why would you put last.fm against pandora instead of slacker.com?

coxy · 2 months ago

Because nobody uses slacker.com? I'm surprised it wasn't a case of Last.fm vs Spotify

Flavio · 2 months ago

Spotify is another local service and there's no reason to consider it as Mashable is read by people all over the world and not just by Americans. Oh... wait... also Pandora is a local service though...

@Barb: please remember that the internet is Global and there's not only the USA!

coxy · 2 months ago

I just found out that Spotify isn't even available in the US. Sucks to be them!

facebook-579671117 · 2 months ago

Of the three, I prefer Slacker. Not sure why it is not as widely used. Spotify is great but is not the same type of thing -- we are talking internet radio, not internet play-on-demand.

aluminumfence · 1 month ago

I use pandora because it is available as a free app on my blackberry too, am also a member of last.fm but voted for pandora because of the blackberry...

dannorthington · 2 months ago

Slacker is better. Larger song list (more labels), better tuning, expert-built stations (current SXSW one is nice). Pandora plays the same stuff over and over.

bitlockers · 2 months ago

That may be a close one there, but I think last.fm may make it.

@m00ns · 2 months ago

There is a problem here. I am a lastfm i think. (Never have a os long enuff to tell)
But the way they have built the streaming services on aren´t the way the "market" do. The right way is to let all streaming services choose or take in whatever label they want to sell. The way they doing it know you got to have all to get all the music you want. Cuz the services don´t have all music you want. That is a *ass way to solve it and going to give artists less money and at the same time going to open for darker services that don´t give a sh*t whatever they offer and artist going to get nothing as usual. Anyone with skills knowing ROS will know that people uses the easiest way to get what they really want. The problem is that music market don´t offer what people wan´t.

Regards
m00ns

logitech lautsprecher · 2 months ago

Hey, nice report- but what about last.fm? they just published an application that grants access to their services, and it looks pretty good so far.

Name · 2 months ago

In a world of social media on rise i feel that last.fm is the winner in this battle. Last.fm allows the user to connect with other users in a way that pandora does not. Pandora uses a hybrid of the original model of radio providing you with music and then judging your tastes based on what you have already listened to. Last.fm allows you connect with other members and learn about new music on a person to person level. Using the more personal connection, much like Amazon in their reviews, last.fm provides a way for users to feel like a human is telling them what they will like not just a complex algorithm.

Anders · 2 months ago

I have an account with both, but I never use Pandora. It's the music service, for people who don't like music. Last.fm is doing almost everything right and there is no contest here.

Pandora seem stuck somewhere in pre-2000, the design hasn't changed and there is no community. I don't know why some people still use it.
Last.fm is not perfect, they now have more ads. But they seem to understand what it takes to go forward and they will probably be ready for the time when subscriptions really starts to be popular. The community is also great with fans making sure all the tags are correct. I would like to see Last.fm be able to do more with social media, but I'm sure they are working on it.

clutterbells · 2 months ago

I liked Pandora and then they had to stop in Australia. So gotta go for Last.fm. I like them too.

saniiro · 2 months ago

I liked last.fm over Pandora simply because they had a largely library. That was, until last.fm got stuck playing only British pop rock. Don't get me wrong, some of it's good music, it's just that despite it's vast library, it really doesn't have me listen to it in the way Pandora does. Sure I could generate a radio station that has music that sounds like such and such artist, but it always brings me back to that British rock. Pandora is amazing for finding new music and artists of all genres, which is really what I'm after. I use last.fm when I hear a great songs on Pandora and want to find more about other albums and read the artists bio, but for the most part, that's all I use last.fm for.

Anders · 2 months ago

I have an account with both, but I never use Pandora. It's the music service, for people who don't like music. Last.fm is doing almost everything right and there is no contest here.

Pandora seem stuck somewhere in pre-2000, the design hasn't changed and there is no community. I don't know why some people still use it.
Last.fm is not perfect, they now have more ads. But they seem to understand what it takes to go forward and they will probably be ready for the time when subscriptions really starts to be popular. The community is also great with fans making sure all the tags are correct. I would like to see Last.fm be able to do more with social media, but I'm sure they are working on it.

Anders · 2 months ago

I have an account with both, but I never use Pandora. It's the music service, for people who don't like music. Last.fm is doing almost everything right and there is no contest here.

Pandora seem stuck somewhere in pre-2000, the design hasn't changed and there is no community. I don't know why some people still use it.
Last.fm is not perfect, they now have more ads. But they seem to understand what it takes to go forward and they will probably be ready for the time when subscriptions really starts to be popular. The community is also great with fans making sure all the tags are correct. I would like to see Last.fm be able to do more with social media, but I'm sure they are working on it.

Steve · 2 months ago

I'd listen to KLove online any day over both of these options. I also recently found RadioFirst which has great stations you can tune into for free on a daily basis.

CarebearStare · 2 months ago

Last.fm is the future. The interface and navigation is much more user friendly compared to Pandora which just focuses on streaming music. Here are my favorite Last.fm features:
-The ability to search by artist, watch music videos and listen to artists songs without having to wait for them to play within the playlist like on Pandora.
-The bio information on each artist available so you can learn more about the music you are listening to
-The world music available is diverse and quite expansive
-The tagging feature which enables you to save your favorite songs/genres for later
-The Interactive and Social features

If you have not tried out Last.fm you should. You won't be disappointed.

Doubledown Tandino · 2 months ago

Reverb Nation kicks both their asses

Flavio · 2 months ago

"we’d love to put these services head to head and find out which is truly the fairest of them all for Mashable readers"

You should have said for US-American Mashable readers, as others can not access Pandora if not using some proxy that slows down the net a lot and makes the streaming almost impossible. :o(

yongshun · 2 months ago

I tried Pandora, but I do not like the flashy version.

I used last.fm before Pandora, it was nice when it was still free. The sad thing is that I do not fall into their region of "free streaming" and I got to pay now. That's disappointing.

alan patrick · 2 months ago

Last.fm is old model - the thing you want to measure forr future value is Pandora v Spotify

Anders · 2 months ago

Please explain how Last.fm is "the "old" model?

gigcity · 2 months ago

Strange comment. Especially since neither Pandora or Spotify do what Last.fm does -- to literally listen to the listener (Scrobble). Last.fm's 'old model' is more intelligent suggestion and a unique personalized social community experience right?

Joe Dawson · 2 months ago

I haven't had any experience with Pandora but I have been really impressed with Last.fm and the ability to scrobble through many sites and services. The recommendations have been consistant and I have enjoyed discovering and listening to new artists, tracks and generating most played statistics!

Carolyn Chan · 2 months ago

Between the two, I'll go with last.fm but I haven't used last.fm since they started charging. I'm now a huge fan of blip.fm.

nileshbabu · 2 months ago

i used last.fm - till there was a case that they might be handing our data to CBS (or others - can't recall) - i have pandora account: but not active - blip.fm - looks good for me

Good morning · 2 months ago

Last.fm is part of CBS. The rumors that last.fm shared data with the RIAA were false. Funny how easy it is to spread false rumors these days.

Nicholas Datema · 2 months ago

Last.fm wins this one in my book for the scrobbling alone. Pandora still has a good serendipity factor but 8tracks has recently become my go to place for new music. I happily subscribe to last.fm as I can stream my library at work and I find the metadata analysis interesting. Scripts like last.fm-love and last.fm-tweetie are great add ons as well.

ron · 2 months ago

I've given up on Pandora and last.fm and have been using radio.aol.com with great satisfaction.

James Burton · 2 months ago

spotify!

iTunes of the streaming world.

Install or get an invite.

malexandria · 2 months ago

I tried using Last.FM and was thoroughly confused and turned off. Couldn't even figure out how to get to the actual music and you have to wade through all of this "social" crap. It has the worst interface I've ever seen. Pandora is simple and straightforward with a decent selection of music. I also love Slacker and don't understand why that doesn't get the love it deserves.

traeblain · 2 months ago

I have a feeling Pandora's going to win, although Last.fm is much better. All the additional features without getting in the way of just listening to music. And great data on the artists.

corecorina · 2 months ago

There are other options to these two streaming services. I hate the Pandora is restricted in some areas - ie: Canada - and that you now have to pay to use it.

Last.fm is a nice corporate entity and I like what CBS is doing re: radio streams... but the site I contribute to http://www.supernova.com (recently featured on Mashable's Spark o' Genius series: http://mashable.com/2009/09/18/supernova/ ) is aiming to combine user recommendation, 'unsigned' artist content, and mainstream media into one experience. This includes the live concerts/shows that connect the artist to the audience - this is what I think both Last.fm and Pandora are sort of missing.

facebook-579671117 · 2 months ago

Last.fm is awesome -- much more user-friendly than Pandora. I hear WAY more repeats on Pandora.

eggfooyung · 2 months ago

Pandora's algorithm for choosing music has always suited me better than the social structure of Last.FM, but I like them BOTH.
Last.FM has a little bit of Facebookitus... convoluted, messy interface. Perhaps lite.last.FM will come out soon. :)

Giancarlo Caparo · 2 months ago

I voted too early. You see Pandora is basically online radio with emphasis on content rather than the social. I usually go there to find music. If I want to interact with some people, I go to Last.fm which has a high emphasis on the social rather than the music. In my opinion they are two completely different services.

Mikel Johnson · 2 months ago

Personally, I do not like either service. I prefer a Radio Station similar to XM Radio or Sirius - Not a bunch of On Demand songs. There is no programming whatso ever when it comes to these two services.

When I listen to these two services I find myself bored after the third song. It is NOT true Radio - It is simply a bunch of songs uploaded to a server with tons of keywords.

Mike Murray · 2 months ago

Last.fm will lose, but I've always preferred it to anything.

Anders · 2 months ago

I think they will win, they actually seem to know what they are doing.

Nathan Hangen · 2 months ago

I love them both, but both of them get stuck in repetitive playlists.

laurastirling · 2 months ago

pandora would rule this.. there's little question in my mind.

real talk son · 2 months ago

If you don't use pandora 1 of 2 things are true about you.

1: your from europe or anywhere outside of the united states.
2: you like mainstream music and socializing more then listening/discovering music.

Last.fm is owned by some huge heartless corporate power house thus the reason they can afford to make their service worldwide. It's not a bad service BUT it's more or less the wallmart of the online music industry.

Anon A. Mus · 2 months ago

Talk about flawed logic. I'm in the US and I could care less about the mainstream and socializing. I stopped using Pandora because of
1- fees,
2- better alternatives (besides last.fm). In fact, thanks to the comments here, I'm trying out slacker.com which may be the best I've found yet.

As for heartless corporations and wal-mart ... go capitalism! That's why we're able to have this discussion in the first place.

Tim · 2 months ago

I much prefer Pandora. I don't want to read about what other people think about what I'm listening to. I don't care that you love the Back Street Boys and Oasis. I want music, I want it good, and I want it now. Pandora outperforms last.fm on all these accounts.

thedaytheytriedtokillme · 2 months ago

Make mine both:
http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/

Ryan Meray · 2 months ago

I can't believe this is even up for debate. Pandora kicks the tar out of Last.fm. In addition to being a much more unique service, and coming up with way more interesting and obscure matches for my varied musical tastes, Pandora has way better customer service. When I have issues, I can contact the team, either by their web form or by twitter, and let them know, whereas with Last.fm, they obscure their contact info and when contacted, usually point to the FAQ and say they can't do anything useful.

The only thing I like about Last.fm is the scrobbling ability. Its usefulness as a music recommendation engine is weak.

Anders · 2 months ago

"My varied musical tastes" you said?

Pandora is only service that comes up dry, whenever you pick an artist, that's just a little bit different.

єηνy ™ · 2 months ago

I like Last.fm

Andrew · 2 months ago

Before it was no longer allowed in Canada, I used Pandora. This was in its early days, so it may have (probably has) changed, but I found that it didn't really do a good job of accounting for you enjoying more than one or two genres of music.

What little I've used Last.fm, it seems fairly good as a source of information about artists and "similar artists".... but again, being in Canada there's certain features I lack without paying, so I can't really judge.

Really, the only web music service I use is radio3.cbc.ca. Independent artists upload tracks, djs play them, and you can favourite individual tracks and artists, and create and share playlists. As of today, it also has multiple streams for different genres, giving you more variety. I find it creates a good mixture of having curators give you new tracks (in the form of on-air DJs and other users) and being able to create your own mixes for when you don't want to deal with anything new or outside of your tastes.

Loren · 2 months ago

My vote goes to last.fm all the way. All my favorite musical artists are Japanese, and Pandora never even manages to recognize them, let alone play tracks by anyone from the Japanese music scene except for the very most big-name of pop artists. Last.fm, on the other hand, has tons of stuff that I like. Until they improve their coverage of international music, Pandora will never get my traffic.

rkv · 2 months ago

simply grooveshark.com
lets have a poll with all the best contenders...

Flavio · 2 months ago

the site redirect to mynextmusic. Maybe another location block?

mechanesthesia · 2 months ago

Are you serious! Pandora doesn't scrobble your tracks, Pandora doesn't recommend anything based on your listening history.

Do you know how many awesome bands I found through Last.fm?

hoyajavis · 2 months ago

I vote Pandora. last.fm depends too much on user-generated clusterfuck, err content. With incorrectly tagged songs, multiple spellings of the same artist, no distinction between bands from different countries with the same name, it's a complete crapshoot what you're going to hear when you listen to a station on last.fm. People who prefer the experience of listening to music on last.fm either have either never tried anything more than seeding a Pandora station with a single song or artist, or have no sensitivity to music.

Anders Dahl · 2 months ago

Actually, I think you have it backwards. Last.fm has a "autochecker" for titles and artists and the active community is fixing the wrong tags/spelling etc. if last.fm misses them.
Also, there are many bands with the same name, most have a country listed in their bio.
I consider these small issues compared to not having any diverse music like Pandora.

hoyajavis · 2 months ago

You're right that much music from around the world is missing from Pandora. I happen to like Korean music, so when I tried last.fm the first station I tried was the Korean rock band Jaurim. Not only were their songs listed separately under the Korean spelling, the English spelling and the Chinese spelling (many Korean artists are popular all across east Asia), but the station played anything and everything with the korean tag. That means that high energy female rock vocals from Jaurim were followed by crooning male ballad singers, hip hop, etc. etc. If I wanted to learn about new bands related Jaurim, that would NOT be the way to go about it.

There may be helpful users who frequently check for mistakes in the database, but for every one of those there could be thousands who continue to enter the same inaccurate or redundant information.

Anders Dahl · 2 months ago

I agree, there is still a long way to go. But I also think last.fm (and others) are aware of their shortcomings and are working on them.
Last.fm has given the "global" music fan much to be happy for. I love world music and think it's awesome to discover many new bands from other countries. For me, it's a case of the "glass is half full".

I'm old enough to remember going to record stores and not finding anything or vey little info on world, jazz, classic or indie.

Anders Dahl · 2 months ago

These services have different ideas about how you should get your music, so it's a little bit like apples vs. oranges.

last.fm - Legit service with big company taken care of things. Like it or not, but that might be what saves the site. Looks like they are ready for people when they get ready for paying for online music services.

Pandora - Also legit (right?) But lacking in almost everything besides actual sounds. No pictures, real bio, social media etc. It's bare bones, some like that, I like to find new music from other music fans.

Grooveshark/blip.fm/hypemachine etc - Grooveshark has a good selection, better than Pandora and maybe as good as Last.fm. The problem with these sites is that they are unreliable, since much popular music is taken down. So your playlists can be full of holes.
(Still love Hype machine)

I tried 3 different artists as a little test on Pandora, last.fm and Grooveshark:

Sunn O)) (drone metal band) - Came up on all 3.

Veto (awesome Danish indie band) - Came up on last.fm and Grooveshark, but better results on last.fm. No show on Pandora.

Huun-Huur-Tu (world music from Tuva) - The real test here was this band, famous in "world music" but unknown to most other music fans. Came up with bio, pictures and songs on last.fm. On Grooveshark there was a couple of songs. But Pandora came up blank again.

If you like different music, last.fm and Grooveshark is good choices. Pandora seems to be lacking, unless it's popular music.

ongodavid · 2 months ago

If Pandorajam (standalone app w/ nice features) didn't exist for OS X, I would say last.fm hands down... but it does exist, so it's a tough call. I also love Grooveshark for it's level of customization and playlist management.

Fara7 · 1 month ago

It is not available to me so I vote Last.fm.

Shelley · 1 month ago

I have tried both Pandora and Last.FM and prefer Last.FM for their larger selection of music and flexibility -- I am not required to listen to a song I don't want to simply because I have skipped 3 others songs that hour.

Petr Faitl · 1 month ago

uuuuuaaa... Too late to cast my vote... Last.fm gets my vote, well immaterial since it won the poll :)

Some in the office say, I should be on their (last.fm) payroll, as an evangelist :)