Jango launches new custom Internet radio service

Computerworld - Jango yesterday announced the public release of its online radio service, which lets users create and share personalized radio stations.

The site has been in beta-test mode for the past four months, signing up more than 300,000 listeners who have created 600,000 stations. The Jango service, available without charge, does not require downloads, searches or playlists, the company noted.

A user types in the name of a musician and a first station starts playing their music; users can then further customize Jango by rating songs and adding more musicians, the company said.

"Until now, there just wasn't a free and easy way to get the music you want online," said Jango CEO Dan Kaufman in a statement. "Jango is as easy as a Google search. In literally seconds, you can create a totally customized radio station that plays exactly what you want to hear."

The site also is centered around a community, allowing users to see who is listening to the same music, who is tuning into the stations a user has developed and what his or her friends are listening to at any given time. When a user tunes into someone else's station, that person will see that the user is there and will be able to interact with that person online, Jango added.

"Jango is more social than other music sites because people tune into each others' stations all the time" added Kaufman. "It's a great way to discover new music -- and just like in the offline world, music is more fun with friends."

In the future, Jango has plans to launch a miniplayer that streams music while users browse other sites. The company described the player, known as the Jango Jukebox, as an embeddable widget for blogs and Web sites like MySpace, Facebook.

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