Jango's Musical Glue

Jango is one of the more recent entries in the internet radio field -- still in beta, in fact -- and seems to be addressing the money problems that face such services by hooking up its users into a social network. Getting users to hang around on the site, and more importantly to continue interacting with the site, is the key to getting more advertising dollars.

Jango's approach to musical discovery is straight-forward, though perhaps a tad simplistic. Create a music station from a particular artist. Jango supplements that artist's music with music liked by other Jango users who also like that artist. Give smiley-faces/frowns to specific songs, and add or ban specific artists. That's about it.

On the other hand, you watch a scrolling ribbon with the personalized images of other Jango users, with the song/artist they are listening to at this moment. Click on the song, and you can listen to it, too. Click on the user's image, and you go to their profile. IM them, email them, add them to your friends list, and look at their submitted photos. Submit your own profile and photos and share as much about yourself as you dare.

So, let's see. Pandora allows you to craft a personal radio station that gets better and better over time, and that works so well that you can just turn it on and pleasantly go about your work, virtually forgetting the Pandora web page. Jango's stations are more like hanging out with friends and trying things they like. The key, of course, is the 'hanging out' part, if you want to make money.