MY NEW BLOG: The Ciudadista: Life in the City

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Another reason to stay with Yahoo

Posted by Hello
This is Yahoo (tm) LAUNCHcast Radio (tm) as it appears on my computer screen. This is an innovative service from Yahoo. It is a customisable radio station.

When you sign up you select your favourite singers or music groups and genres from classical to stand-up comedy. This builds up your playlist. When you start your player such as the one above you will begin to listen to songs from your fave singers or songs in the genres you prefer to listen. You can pause and also skip songs.

To further customise your playlist you need to rate genres, artists, songs and album. Those you rate four or five stars shall be heard more often than those from three to one star. You can also select never play again, I guess this is self explanatory. The more artists, genres, songs and albums you rate the better your playlist gets.

There are two types of services, free and plus. The free service offers the customisable radio but has adverisements, up to medium audio quality and an 800 song skip limit. The song skip limit means when you cannot press forward or skip. The plus service offers unlimited skipping, up to high quality audio, access to premium stations (like hits from 10-30 years ago) and customisable moods. Launchcast plus costs from around USD 3.00 - 4.00 per month.

LAUNCHcast also allows you to listen to the radio stations of other Yahoo users.

The LAUNCHcast website allows you to know more about the artists and their discography. It has links to where you can buy albums.