Fishing on RadioTuna
Of the popularizing sites that offer streamed music for free, RadioTuna.com makes some progressive waves. Radio Tuna is an mediator for a vast catalogue of webstreaming radio stations. It’s site houses a search engine categorized by Genre, Artist, and Station Search. From there, FT produces list of stations that either play that genre, the selected artist, or relative stations.
The most convenient function I found, is the radio player within the site. There’s no external player needed, no links out to the hosts sites. It’s just right there on the right. Not only does this allow for users to continue searching other artists, other stations, genres, etc. but it allows for a critical experience unique to users: Exposure to other artists.
I.E. – I artist search, Modest Mouse. FishTuna has now generated a list of 112 radio stations playing Modest Mouse, but does let me know that are none playing MM right now (also a cool feature). The resulting radio stations then list the three most predominant genres. KCOU 88.1 FM plays Modest Mouse, however, they are also listed as playing a majority of Indie Rock, less Alt. Rock, and even less Punk. When selected, KCOU 88.1 FM gives the 5 most popular genres, recent tracks and artists, album art covers and a bookmark feature.
One of the few draw backs of the site, however, is that the quality of stream isn’t always the greatest. Granted, it’s radio, listeners may be presented with fuzzy streams and subpar-limewire download-mp3 quality feeds. FishTuna does however offer a very unique radio listening experience with a selection of stations, unlike competing webstreams like Last.fm or Pandora where there’s only one station.
Overall, FishTuna does offer listeners like myself, who don’t spend time in cars, have a juke box, or have portable radio tuners (you know what I’m talking about, the yellow ones w/ grey grip strips and an arm band) a means to stream radio online (where I spend most of my time).
Check it out, it’s pretty cool, and the perks of being to able stream college radio stations from all over in one site is awesome too!